LA Clippers Officially Unveil New Logos, Uniforms

The Los Angeles Clippers made official what we’ve all known for months, unveiling their new logo and uniforms both last night on Conan and again this morning on their official website.

With the unveiling made official we’re finally getting an explanation on what all these elements mean…

The new primary logo (above) features a “CLIPPERS” wordmark in black — black added to the colour scheme to “lend a modern edge”, below the Clippers wordmark (below) is two arched lines. These lines are meant to allude to the ocean horizon as yes, this is a team named after a type of sailing ship. Easy to forget that.

You may also notice there’s a little silver inner line inside each of the letters in the wordmark, “a silver lining” says the team to show the “renewed collective optimism of Clippers Nation”. We chuckled at “renewed” too.

Red and blue is carried over to the new branding as a link to the history of the team.

The “LA” within the “LAC” logos seen above is in the shape of a basketball court (on the logo to the right this means you have a basketball court on a basketball… did you know they play basketball?). The “C” around “LA” shows that the team is “literally embracing” the City of Los Angeles.

That explanation behind the “LAC” logo on the basketball instantly reminded me of the old 1970s Vancouver Canucks logo:

The logo on the left was described very similarly, it’s the letter “C” with a hockey stick in it together in the shape of a hockey rink. Pretty much the same idea, just modernized and basketballized.

At home the team is wearing a half-decent uniform for the set, nothing too exciting, I’m mostly happy that the wordmark isn’t tiny (those Pelicans uniforms really lowered the bar on NBA jerseys for me apparently):

Things get a little different on the road where we see the “LAC” logo off to the right with the player number placed on level with it. I like that they’re getting creative but it doesn’t look right to me, maybe because the logo isn’t centered:

The team is expected to have at least one alternate uniform, based on the prior leaked graphics. Previously we had seen both a blue and black uniform with the new logos.

Merchandise is already available however if you want some of the new gear just hang around Los Angeles, eventually a team staffer will just hand you one for free. Seriously, the club is running around town giving away t-shirts… they even hit up LAX and filled planes with the new stuff for passengers. That’s one way to get your new brand out to as many people as possible (there’s a joke in there somewhere about them having to give it all away for free *already*)