The Seattle Seahawks logo is the sort of emblem that creates a strong emotional response. The aggressive, indigenous bird, whose fierce glare is not that easy to forget, has been only modified twice.
Seattle Seahawks are the team, with one of the largest amounts of fans in the National Football League, andone of the most recognizable logos. The team’s fans are known as the loudest in the Championship. Seattle is literally crazy about its football club. The Seahawks win one Super Bowl, in 2013, and 3 conference championships, the club also has twenty playoff appearances.
The Seahawks are a relatively young team, having only joined the NFL in 1976. The team was never an underdog, and in the 1980s it began to make frequent playoff appearances. The achievements of those years are inextricably linked to Seahawks coach Chuck Knox.
The hardest decade for the club was in the 1990s, and even then they were never considered an outsider. Seattle Seahawks managed to get to the playoffs in 1999, and won the Division Championship.
The Seahawks’ big success came at the beginning of the twenty-first century. First, under coach Mike Holmgren and with running back Sean Alexander, who was named the Most Valuable Player in 2005, the team made the playoffs five times in a row, including reaching the Super Bowl, where it lost to Pittsburgh.
In 2010, Seattle was led by Pete Carroll, and a golden era began – since then, the team has missed the playoffs only three times. In 2013, the Seattle Seahawks won the Super Bowl, and a year later reached the finals again, losing to New England Patriots at the last second.
Seattle Seahawks football club was founded in 1974, and played its first season in the National Football league two years later, in 1976. From 1976 until 1999 Seahawks played on the Kingdome Arena in Seattle, moving to Husky Stadium, and finally, to the Lumen Field, which is the home stadium of the club since 2002.
Today Seahawks are a very strong and confident team, with dozens of titles and playoff appearances. The club has a huge fan club, and its members have set Guinness World Record for the loudest crowd noise twice.
The active and loyal fans of the football club, have three nicknames: The Hawks, The Blue Wave, and The Legion of Boom.
What are Seattle Seahawks?
Seattle Seahawks is the name of a professional football club in the United States, which was established in Seattle in 1974. Today the club plays in the National Football League as a member of the West Division. The Seahawks have Lumen Field as the home arena and Pete Carol as the head coach.
The emblem was created in 1975, not long after the team got its name. Both the name and the emblem made their debut on June 17. Back then, the team’s General Manager John Thompson described a Seahawk in the following way: a “tough, fish-eating bird.” The logo featured a picturesque blue and green osprey’s head with a strong beak.
At first glance, the logo was almost the same, as the core visual metaphor was not changed. However, in fact quite a few modifications took place, resulting in a cleaner, more aggressive and stylish look.
A shift in the color palette brought the following new shades: a lighter and a darker shades of blue and lime green. The redesign was done by NFL Properties in-house design team and was connected with the club’s moving to the NFC.
In terms of the overall shape and the lines, the Seahawks logo has remained the same. Only the color scheme has been tweaked. Starting from 2012, it included the so-called College Navy and Action Green shades, as well as the Wolf Grey accent color.
John Thompson, who was hired as the team’s general manager in 1975, mentioned that when the NFL firm was commissioned to design the logo, he asked them to “follow the Northwest Indian culture”. There were no strict conditions in this respect, but it was desirable to make the logo somewhat reminiscent of the Native American art. Also, according to Thompson, NFL actually mentioned referring to some books on Northwest Indian culture. This fact was even explored in a 1975 article in Seattle PI. However, in the course of time the origin of the logo was forgotten, and it was only in the 2010s that the connection was “discovered” once again and the newspaper article was unearthed.
The book that inspired the designers was Art of the Northwest Coast Indians by Robert Bruce Inverarity published in 1950. Here, there was a photo of a Kwakwaka’wakw mask. It was a so-called transformation mask existing in the two forms: when closed, it showed an eagle, while when it opened during the dance, it revealed a human face. It represented a supernatural eagle, also called thunderbird, which could exist in the human form.
The similarity with the Seahawks logo was absolutely obvious: one cannot but notice the bold line around the eye and the mouth, the distinctive eyelid lines, as well as the overall shape of the head and beak. Most likely, the mask was made somewhere between Alaska and Seattle.
Where is the mask now?
Shortly after the origin of the Seahawks emblem was rediscovered, the mask itself was found, too. It turned out to be part of the Hudson Museum at the University of Maine. Prior to it, the mask was in the property of the German artist Max Ernst, then, following his death in 1976, was purchased by a private collector, William P. Palmer III. His collection, in its turn, went to the Hudson Museum in 1982.
To make the mask closer to the Seahawks fans, it was brought from Maine to Seattle. At the end of the 3,200 mile journey, the mask arrived to the Burke museum, where it has been on display more than once.
The current Seahawks wordmark features a solid all-cap typeface. The type is perfectly legible, yet recognizable due to the distinctive sharp elements present on all the letters.
Many people say, that Seattle Seahawks have the most stylish helmets in the league, and it is pretty much true, as the combination of colors and the style of the logo, placed on the sides of the club’s helmets, look very sharp and exquisite. The dark blue helmets have darker masks and a light-gray image of a Seahawks on the side. The bird has its eye drawn in lime green, and this small detail creates an incredibly modern and stylish image.
The official color palette for the uniforms of the Seattle Seahawks is composed of three elegant shades: college navy, action green, and wolf grey. The club has four uniform design options: the color one, with navy-blue jerseys and pants, decorated by gray and green elements; the white one, with blue pants; the first alternate uniform, executed in gray, with blue and green design elements; and the second alternate option, which is the brightest one, with green jersey and pants, and blue accents.
Since 2002 Seattle Seahawks play onLumen Field, a stadium with a capacity of 68,740 seats, and a football field of 109,7 meters x 48,8 meters. Prior to that, the club has been playing in Kingdome arena, with two breaks in 1994 and 2000, when the Seahawks moved to the Husky Stadium.
The color palette includes the shade of blue that is called “College Navy” (or ”Seahawk Blue”), as well as “Action Green” and “Wolf Grey.” All the three are the team’s official colors, also present in their uniform.
COLLEGE NAVY
PANTONE: PMS 289 C
HEX COLOR: #002244;
RGB: (0, 34, 68)
CMYK: (100, 65, 0, 60)
ACTION GREEN
PANTONE: PMS 368 C
HEX COLOR: #69BE28;
RGB: (105, 190, 40)
CMYK: (57, 0, 84, 0)
WOLF GRAY
PANTONE: PMS 429 C
HEX COLOR: #A5ACAF;
RGB: (165, 172, 175)
CMYK: (5, 0, 0, 30)