The men’s athletic teams competing at Western Kentucky University in Bowling Green, Kentucky, are known as the Western Kentucky Hilltoppers, while the women’s teams play under the name of Lady Toppers.
The Western Kentucky Hilltoppers logo showcases a large piece of red cloth, which represents a flag. On the red background, the lettering “WKU” (the university’s initials) can be seen. Also, there is a hand holding the flag.
While the shades and the different size of the glyphs add some depth, you can feel that the abbreviation does not seamlessly merge into the design – the letters seem to pop out.
The Western Kentucky Hilltoppers logo, designed in 1971, has stayed with the program for thirty years. It was an interesting image with the white hand holding a red flag, which looked more like a wide scarf. The flag had three white capital letters “WKU” drawn on it in a heavy geometric serif font. Each letter was outlined in black, just like the white hand, which made the badge look confident and professional.
The redesign of the Western Kentucky Hilltoppers badge, held in 2001, has strengthened and modernized the original badge of the program, bringing in darker shades and smoother lines. The hand was redrawn in gray, which was supported by a wide gray outline of all elements, and the banner was now weaving not to the right, but to the left.
The badge of the athletic program from Western Kentucky University was redesigned again in 2016, with the banner turned to the right again, and the gray color removed from the composition. The shade of red got a bit lighter, closer to the one, used in the original version of the Western Kentucky Hilltopperslogo. This version has only stayed active for one year.
RED
PANTONE: PMS 186
HTML/HEX COLOR: #C60C30;
RGB(198,12,48)
CMYK: (0,100,75,4)
BLACK
PANTONE: PMS BLACK
HTML/HEX COLOR: #1E1E1E;
RGB(0,0,0)
CMYK: (0,0,0,100)
GRAY
PANTONE: PMS 422
HTML/HEX COLOR: #A2A4A3;
RGB(162,164,163)
CMYK: (16,11,11,29)