The club is currently the Triple-A affiliate of the Major League’s Cincinnati Reds. The starting point in the team’s history was probably when in 1982 the Redbirds club relocated from Springfield, Illinois to Louisville and was renamed the Louisville Redbirds. In 1998, the team was renamed Louisville RiverBats, while the current name was adopted three years later.
Established in 1982 under the name Louisville Redbirds, throughout the years the franchise has managed to win four League and eight Division titles, which shows it as a pretty strong Minor League Baseball competitor. For the first fifteen seasons, the team was a farm club of the St. Louis Cardinals, and this partnership was quite visible in the Redbirds’ visual identity.
In 1999 the name of the club was changed to the Louisville RiverBats, it was also the period, when the team was affiliated with the Milwaukee Brewers. However. That period didn’t last long. Already in 2000, RiverBats started playing under the wing of Cincinnati Reds, and two years later the new name, Louisville Bats was adopted.
In terms of visual identity, everything is pretty simple. Since 2002, the Minor League Baseball team Louisville Bats has had two logotypes. Both were based on a depiction of a bat, and they differed dramatically in their shape and color palette.
The original logo of the franchise was introduced in 1982 when the Louisville Redbirds played their first season. It was an intense graphical emblem, executed in a dramatic red, purple, and gold color palette, with the red cardinal bird holding a baseball bat drawn on a background with a solid purple roundel decorated by a gold Fleur-de-lys symbol on the right. The image was accompanied by a delicate yet confident cursive wordmark in dark red.
The redesign of 1999 was held after the franchise rebranding. The adoption of the new name, RiverBats, was followed by the creation of a new graphical image. The new logo was drawn in a funny caricaturish manner, with a flying bat holding a baseball bat. The creature was executed in two shades of purple, which created a nice contrast with the bright yellow bat.
Now, the logo features two bats at once: the animal is holding a baseball bat in its paws. With the addition of red, the color palette has become more vivid. On the background, there’s a white baseball with red seams. The design is placed inside a navy blue ring featuring the name of the team.
The three main colors of the Louisville Bats logo are red, dark blue, and grey, while white was left for the background.