The Giants debuted as the New York Gothams. It was in 1883. Two years passed and their name changed to the Giants. In 1958 the team was relocated to San Francisco. The fact that the Giants have played for two home cities explains the multiple number of their logos and their great diversity.
The history of the San Francisco Giants baseball club dated back to 1904, when it was established under the name New York Giants, and kept that name until its relocation to California in 1958. As for the visual identity, it has also been based on two main concepts — the monogram, during the first era, and a bright yet minimalist graphical emblem, during the second one.
The original New York Giant logo, introduced in 1904, featured a pretty simple yet bold blue “NY” monogram with its square serif letters placed far from each other. The thick lines and massive serif of the symbols made the emblem look confident and solid.
The logo, created for the baseball club in 1908 had its come back twice, in 1919 and 1928. It was a black intertwined lettering with both “N” and “Y” drawn in fancy smooth letters with come ends forked and others — rounded.
The emblem, designed in 1908 was redrawn in orange color in 1923. All the contours remained untouched, and the redesign was just about the brightness energy. This badge was used by the club three times during its history.
The edges of the letters were redrawn and the color palette switched to red and white in 1954. The rounded ends of the lines were replaced with the forked and archer ones, which added playfulness and elegance. The lines of the symbols became thicker and cleaner, and the bright red monogram evokes a sense of balance and confidence. This was the last badge, designed for New York Giants.
In 1958 the baseball club relocated to California and changed its name to San Francisco Giants. The redesign of the visual identity was held in the same year. There were two emblems, created for the team this year and both of them became a basis for the following redesigns and the current badges of the Giants.
The primary logo featured a gradient white and gray baseball with orange stitched and a diagonally placed black “Giants” inscription executed in bold lines of a cursive typeface.
As for the secondary version, it was a square and futuristic “SF” monogram in a serif font, executed in intense orange color and placed in a black background.
The color palette of the primary logo was changed in 1977 and now the baseball featured a combination of orange and black, while the diagonal inscription remained untouched. Both elements got slightly enlarged to look more confident and distinct in any background.
In 1983 the club changed the style of the wordmark and started writing it in a bold serif typeface with all letters capitalized and “G” and “S” enlarged. The black symbols in a thin orange outline were placed in a white baseball with delicate black stitches and slightly arched from the center. The lines of the secondary logo were also a bit refined in 1983, making the angles smoother, and the serifs — shorter.
The typeface of both emblems was changed in 1994. Now the capitalized letters had their edges sharp and fancy, and the whole badge started looking chic and elegant clean evoking a sense of professionalism, progressiveness yet showing the club’s value of its history.
The redesign of 2000 placed the letters of the inscription a bit farther from each other and made the arched settlement more visible. Another change was made to the baseball, and now its stitches feature the same orange shade as the letters’ outline.
All the logos used for the seasons played in the Big Apple consist of only two elements ‒ the letters “N” and “Y”, which is their distinctive feature. They mean New York.
The letters “N” and “Y” on the first logo are blue and there is some distance between them. They are in a block style.
On all the other logos of the New York period the letters “N” and “Y” are interlocked, they are depicted in an old style and their colors change in the following succession ‒ blue (1908), brown (1909), red (1910), black (1911-1912), black plus a purple trim (1913-1914), black (1915), blue (1916), brown (1917), blue (1918-1922), red plus a black trim (1923), red (1924-1927), blue plus red trim (1928-1929), red plus a black trim (1930-1932), brown plus an orange trim (1933-1935), blue plus a red trim (1936-1939), blue plus a red trim (1945-1946).
Judging by all the Giants logos their color scheme is rather rich. They have made use of black, brown, blue, red, orange, cream as well as their different shades.
ORANGE
PANTONE: PMS 172 C
HEX COLOR: #FD5A1E;
RGB: (253, 90, 30)
CMYK: (00, 65, 83, 00)
BLACK
PANTONE: PMS PROCESS BLACK C
HEX COLOR: #27251F;
RGB: (39, 37, 31)
CMYK: (00, 00, 00, 100)
BEIGE
PANTONE: PMS 155 C
HEX COLOR: #EFD19F;
RGB: (239, 209, 159)
CMYK: (4, 10, 18, 5)
GOLD
PANTONE: PMS 874 MATTE C
HEX COLOR: #AE8F6F;
RGB: (174, 143, 111)
CMYK: (11, 30, 55, 15)