Since their arrival in Los Angeles in 1984, the Clippers have maintained a steady — if unspectacular — look. They share a building with the Lakers, who have won 16 NBA championships, including eight since the Clippers joined them in Los Angeles. The visual similarities between the Lakers’ and Clippers’ logos are striking: italicized letterforms backed up by an outlined basketball, even the scale of elements within each logo; all invite inevitable comparison. One would think that a clean break is desperately needed, especially when we consider the divergent cultures and track records that surround each franchise over the past three decades.
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Examining the visual history of the Clippers franchise means that we need to travel 2,500 miles eastward, to Buffalo, N.Y. The Buffalo Braves were created in 1970. Their first logo was complex, and it only lasted for one single season. Starting in 1971 the team employed a dynamic feathered “B” logo, a bold, corporate-looking mark rendered in black and bright orange. Over the course of their eight seasons in Buffalo the Braves uniforms ran the gamut from very colorful to very progressive to very austere. Their final look—a color scheme dominated by Columbia blue—went west with them when the franchise shifted to San Diego prior to the 1978-79 season.
The Braves move to Southern California called for a new nickname, one that spoke to the beaches rather than lake-effect snow.
The team held a “name the team” contest, won by Frank Kowalski of San Diego. His logic behind “Clippers” was solid: a “fast, slender sailing ship designed for speed.” Some of the names that didn’t make the cut included the Grunions, Skunks, Starships, Seagulls, Oarsmen and Koalas. Two notable names that stood out were the San Diego Gob and the San Diego Zoo (just imagine the logo possibilities in either case.)
The San Diego Clippers employed a colorful and graphically simple logo, one that they used for their first few years out west. Their uniforms were noteworthy for their baby-blue color scheme and shorts with a series of nautical flags that spelled out “Clippers.”
After this, the look of the franchise took a turn southward — even as the team soon moved to the north. Their once-distinct uniforms gave way to a far more conventional look, and the team’s color palette became (blah) royal blue and red.
The logo that the Clippers introduced in 1982-83 is nearly identical to the one they use today. The move to Los Angeles meant, of course, that “San Diego” needed to be replaced in the logo. The basketball in the logo was rotated in 2010, and the words “Los Angeles” were enlarged—minor tweaks to the Lakers-esque graphic identity of the team.
The script letterforms that the team has sported on their uniforms since 1987 remain—at least for now. The Clippers road uniforms went red that year and have remained so ever since. In the tribal world of sports visuals, the Clippers’ use of red stands out as one of their very few recognizable brand traits.
The team added a “Los Angeles” royal blue alternate uniform to the mix in 2002 and reached back into its past in 2013 in introducing a baby-blue sleeved alternate jersey — joyously punctuated by the use of nautical flags on the shorts.
It’s been a turbulent few years for the Clippers, a talented team in dire need of a wholesale brand makeover. New owner Steve Ballmer certainly wants to shake clear many ties to the Donald Sterling era. Speculation abounds as to what the 2015-16 Clippers will look like, but it’s safe to imagine that they will not be purple and gold when they take the court at Staples Center next September.
