The Fiesta Bowl logo has gone through multiple updates over its long history (the first game was played in 1971). Nevertheless, it has always featured the sun or flower symbol. In some logos, it was more visible, while in others it was half-hidden by the corporate sponsor logo attached.
Fiesta Bowl is the name of an American football game, which is held every year since 1971. The name of the Howl hasn’t been changed until 1985, but then the tournament got a sponsor, Sunkist, so the name of the company was added to the name of the Bowl, and it stayed that way up to 1990. After the Sunkist sponsorship ended, the Bowl had no sponsor at all for two seasons, and in 1993 IBM comes to the rescue, so until 1995, the game was called IBM OS/2 Fiesta Bowl.
The most consistent sponsor of the bowl is, definitely, Tostitos. They started financing the bowl in 1996, and have only left it in 2014. For just one season, in 2014, the bowl was named Vizio Fiesta Bowl, and in 2016 — BattleFrog Fiesta Bowl. The more contacts sponsor came to the bowl in 2016, and it was PlayStation. The bowl was named the PlayStation Fiesta Bowl until 2022.
What is Fiesta Bowl?
Fiesta Bowl is a famous American bowl game, held between the football clubs from collegiate athletic programs. Since 2014 the bowl is affiliated with the College Football Playoff, and the first division of the National Collegiate Athletic Association. The first game of the Fiesta Bowl was played in 1971.
The redesign of 1986 kept the graphical emblem unchanged, but made it slightly smaller, giving the main part to the rewritten inscription. It was now executed in a bold and smooth italicized typeface, in a title case. The upper level in bright yellow featured “Sunkist”, while the bottom red one — “Fiesta Bowl”, which was written in one line, having a wide space between the two words.
The Fiesta Bowl logo was redesigned again in 1996. This time the main hero of the badge was the emblem of the bowl’s sponsor, Tostitos. Its bold stylized black logotype was set on a white banner with a blue outline, set over the iconic orange and red Aztec sun emblem. The uppercase “Fiesta Bowl” inscription was placed under the Tostitos insignia, and written in a stylized bold font, with the letters jumping on a bright yellow background, and underlined by a red zig-zag line.
For the National, championship of 2003, the logo of Fiesta Bowl was redesigned again. This time the bright badge, created in 1996, was placed over the diagonally-oriented brown football and accompanied by a white ribbon with the red uppercase “National Championship” lettering in a bold geometric sans-serif.
The only change made in 2007 was about the color palette of the Fiesta Bowl logo. All shades got brightened up and intensified, with the bodies of the “Fiesta Bowl” inscription plain and flat, unlike the patterned ones from the previous version. The Tostitos emblem was also refined: a triangular yellow chips image was added above the red dot of the letter “I”, just like the official logo of the brand, which was redesigned in the same year.
In 2014 Vizio became the bowl’s sponsor, so the logo is getting redesigned. For that season it featured a modern red crest with a double red and white outline, a white Vizio logotype on top, a half of the iconic Aztec sun above the crest, and the smooth and elegant white “Fiesta Bowl” inscription slightly arched and written over the dark orange ribbon, coming through the center of the crest. The bottom part was decorated with a white chevron with a triangle pointing down.
The sponsor has changed again in 2015, thus the logo was redrawn for the season. The composition was slightly simplified and now the two arched banners were set one above the other with the enlarged half of the Aztec sun on the background. The upper banner was executed in white and outlined in blue and green, featuring a navy blue stylized “Battlefrog” logotype in a custom modern font. As for the bottom line, it was wider and boasted a solid red color, with the white cursive “Fiesta Bowl” lettering on it.
PlayStation becomes the new sponsor of the bowl in 2016, and the new logo is being introduced in the same year. A horizontally stretched blue and white crest has a wide blue banner with the sponsor’s logotype written over it in white, the red outlined cursive “Fiesta Bowl” inscription arched under it, and the signifier of the bowl, the Aztec sun, drawn over a solid blue circle and placed on the bottom of the crest. The upper part of the badge featured a blue landscape image with a lonely cactus, which was crossing the triple outline of the logo on its upper border.
The redesign of 2022 was held when the new sponsor, Vrbo, came to the Fiesta Bowl. The badge now features a hexagonal shape, with the white medallion in a dark blue outline and some thin blue and red stripes from the inside. The red arched “Fiesta Bowl” inscription is placed in the center, under the gray “VRBO” in the corporate style, and a stylized red and yellow sun in the top corner of the composition. The bottom part of the logo depicts a solid blue landscape with cactuses and a white road, and the iconic Aztec sun right under the main logotype.
The smooth and bright title case lettering from the primary badge of the Fiesta Bowl is set in a custom and ornate cursive font with softened elongated lines and curved ends. The closest fonts to the one, used in this insignia, are, probably, Umbriago NF, or LTC Goudy Heavyface Extras, but with some modifications.
As for the color palette of the Fiesta Howl visual identity, it is based on a classic powerful combination of blue, red, and white, which stands for excellence, confidence, and reliability. The logo looks bright yet calm and stable at the same time.