The Los Angeles Clippers have struggled for years to shake off their reputation as one of the NBA’s most unfortunate franchises. Operating in the perennial shadow of the Lakers, the Clippers actually have a decent team this season, with hopes of winning their first championship.
But the job of transforming their image has not been an easy task, and the Clippers announced their latest attempt last week: a new logo which, defying preconceived ideas, extends to their past.
The logo, which the team will begin using next season when it moves to a new arena near Inglewood, Calif., depicts the silhouette of an oncoming ship. The Clippers describe it as “a nod to the team’s origins” in San Diego, where the franchise was based in the late 1970s and early ’80s. The ship’s hull features the seams of a basketball and is framed by a compass.
Art and design site Creative Bloq rated the new logo as “an instant classic” which honors the team’s past “while remaining fresh”. An SB Nation editor wrote that the Clippers had “get rid of their loser imageand finally look like a real NBA team.
Others weren’t as enamored. Fast Company described the new look as “confusing” and the result of “what happens when logos try to do too much: Is it a boat? Is it a compass? In fact, it’s both. Craig Calcaterra, who publishes a daily newsletter on baseball, news and culture, cited another observation – that the logo appeared to show a cruise liner in someone’s line of sight.
“Now I can’t ignore it,” Mr. Calcaterra wrote on the social platform X.
Given their history, the Clippers are easy prey for sports pundits. It has been suggested that the team could have renamed, say, the animated trombone from an outdated version of Microsoft Office, or perhaps as pair of nail clippers.
Michael Brennan, a New York-based designer who was not involved in the process, said creating a new logo for a sports team can often seem like a losing battle.
“I think some people are going to be resistant from the start, no matter what,” Mr. Brennan said in an interview. “But that, to me, makes it feel like it has a lot more staying power than previous versions.”
The Clippers were founded in 1970 as the Buffalo Braves and enjoyed modest success before the franchise moved to Southern California in 1978.
There, the team was renamed the San Diego Clippers, with a new logo to boot: a trio of triangles reminiscent of elegant sail masts on the water. The team, unfortunately, was a disaster, experiencing five straight losing seasons before then-team owner Donald Sterling moved the Clippers to Los Angeles in 1984. without seeking approval of the NBA
In Los Angeles, the Clippers remained a struggling franchise, going 21 seasons without winning a single playoff series. Their primary logo was equally forgettable: the team name inside a basketball, which was presumably a pass thrown out of bounds. The team was almost synonymous with dysfunction, and that was before the NBA forced Mr. Sterling to sell the team in 2014 after he was recorded making racist comments.
Steve Ballmer, the team’s new owner, almost immediately revamped the logo — a basketball with a big blue “C” and an “LA” inside — but it hardly looked like an improvement. This logo, which will be retired after this season, has as much personality as a concrete slab.
And while the Clippers have been competitive in recent seasons, they continue to face some of the same obstacles of making more of their mark in a city long dominated by the Lakers. To add to the challenge, the Clippers and Lakers have played in the same downtown arena since 1999.
That will change next season when the Clippers move to Inglewood in the Intuitive Dome, a building they can call their own. This impending move also presented the team with another chance to rebrand – one they can only hope to deliver.
Reactions to the inspiration for the new logo, however, have been mixed. Claire Boulaprofessor of graphics at Boston University, wondered why the team’s fans would care about its fleeting ties to San Diego, a city the Clippers fled from about 40 years ago.
“When you think about nautical heritage, it doesn’t seem very connected to the modern Clippers organization,” Ms. Bula said in an interview, adding: “It looks more like the logo of a luxury yacht company than it does. that of a basketball team.”
Mr Brennan, meanwhile, said the new logo was “really thoughtful” and had a “majestic” vibe.
But sports fans can be fickle, and the craftsmanship of a well-executed design may not even matter.
“Some of my favorite logos aren’t necessarily good,” Mr. Brennan said. “I just have an emotional connection to these teams.”
