The Utah Jazz logo history is a perfect example of how a team can benefit from just returning to its roots. Having gone through three logo updates, they eventually returned to the original logo, with a couple of modifications.
Utah Jazz is one of the American basketball clubs with the most constant and recognizable visual identity concepts. The first logo, created for the team in 1974, came in today only slightly refined and elevated, but with all the main elements and style kept in the original state.
What is Utah Jazz?
Utah Jazz is the name of a professional basketball club from the United States, which was established in 1974 in New Orleans, and for the first five years was called New Orleans Jazz. Today one of the clubs of the National Basketball Association has Vivint Arena in Salt Lake City as its home stadium.
The very first logo was introduced for the New Orleans Jazz basketball club in 1974 and featured a stylized purple inscription with the first “J” drawn like a more, and it’s circular part — like a basketball in purple, yellow, and green and with white accents. The black “New Orleans” in italicized capitals was placed above the right part of the logotype.
In 1979 the club relocated to Utah but keeps using its original logo for another seventeen years, only replacing the “New Orleans” lettering with the “Utah” one. The color palette and style of the whole emblem remains absolutely untouched and becomes recognizable across the country.
In 1996 the logo gets redesigned, and the new emblem featured a light brown circle with blue and white Montesinos picture and a custom stylish “Jazz” lettering placed slightly diagonally over the badge, drawn in two shades of blue and outlined in white and yellow.
The contours of the logo were refined and strengthened in 2004, along with the elevated color palette of the club’s visual identity. The dark blue circle with purple and white mountains balanced the light blue and white inscription, making it brighter and more confident.
In 2010 the club changed the color palette of its logo again. Now it is a combination of blue, green, and white, with small yellow accents and an outline of the inscription. The contours of all the elements were cleaned and modernized, and the badge looked stylish and powerful.
In 2016 the club comes back to its original logo version, with the stylized “Jazz” lettering executed in a new blue, green, and yellow color palette. The “Utah” inscription is now also drawn in blue and has its sans-serif letters italicized and slightly narrowed.
The logo presented here resonates with a dynamic combination of sporty allure and distinctive design elements. At its core is a black basketball, crisply delineated with the sport’s hallmark intersecting lines. The choice of a monochromatic palette imparts a classic yet assertive demeanor, ensuring that the very spirit of the game remains at the forefront. It’s a visual representation of countless dribbles, passes, and shots that have defined basketball over the decades.
To the right of the basketball, a creatively rendered letter “J” extends outward, artfully integrating itself into the sphere. This design choice isn’t just aesthetically pleasing but is laden with meaning. The “J”, while alluding to the team’s moniker “Jazz”, also invokes a sense of fluidity and movement, characteristics that are integral to both the sport and the rhythmic nuances of jazz music. It’s as if the logo dances to its own beat, mirroring the unpredictable and exhilarating nature of a live basketball game.
Finalizing the design is the bold inscription of “UTAH JAZZ” below the emblem. Set in a straightforward and impactful typeface, the lettering grounds the logo, providing clarity and immediate identification. Each letter stands tall and unyielding, much like the team it represents. All in all, the logo seamlessly weaves together tradition with contemporary design elements, resulting in a visual that is both memorable and emblematic of the team’s ethos.
While “Jazz” appears to be given in a unique custom type, the word “Utah” features a pretty generic sans serif font.
In contrast to the comparatively complex old color schemes, the current one includes only navy blue, gold, and green, as well as white for the background.
NAVY
PANTONE: PMS 289 C
HEX COLOR: #002B5C;
RGB: (0, 43, 92)
CMYK: (100, 64, 0, 60)
GREEN
PANTONE: PMS 350 C
HEX COLOR: #00471B;
RGB: (0, 71, 27)
CMYK: (80, 0, 90, 75)
YELLOW
PANTONE: PMS 137 C
HEX COLOR: #F9A01B;
RGB: (249, 160, 27)
CMYK: (0, 43, 100, 0)