Charlotte Hornets D-League Affiliate Reveals Name and Logo

The 2016-17 NBA D-League season will see the Charlotte Hornets’ D-League affiliate tip off for their inaugural season in the developmental league. After going a while without a name or identity, the affiliate revealed both tonight — Charlotte’s D-League affiliate will be known as the Greensboro Swarm.

As you can see, the Swarm’s identity is very close to what their parent club looks like. That’s a good idea, not only because of the fact that the Hornets already have one of the better logo sets in the league, but because synergy between the parent and child club is nice to have. This was done by design, as the team explained in their press release.

“When we selected the name and logo for our D-League team, it was important to us that they be closely tied to our Hornets brand,” said Hornets President & COO Fred Whitfield. “Swarm is a word that we often use in conjunction with the Hornets, as it not only describes a group of hornets but it also refers to a large, energetic gathering. We believe this name also represents the city of Greensboro, where fans gather in great numbers to support the game of basketball and show their excitement towards it. Swarm is a part of the DNA and the attitude of our Hornets franchise. Our D-League team is an extension of our organization, both on and off the court, and this name and logo embody that concept.”
The Greensboro Swarm wordmark resembles that of the Hornets, using the same font and having the city name in smaller letters above the nickname in larger letters. The primary logo prominently features the wordmark, above a design of a basketball with a stinger coming out the bottom that is also used in the Hornets primary logo. The secondary logo features the letters “GS” with a smaller version of the basketball and stinger. The Swarm will use teal and cool gray as primary colors, with purple as an accent color. The wordmark and logos were designed internally by the Hornets creative department.

An interesting note, however, is that the team will be using gray as a primary color, while purple has been relegated to an accent color. Hopefully this doesn’t mean that we’re going to see yet another gray uniform in sports. Hopefully the uniforms focus on teal, but that’s just the hope and aspiration of someone who is tired of seeing gray uniforms in basketball. Plus, as long as they avoid a uniform debacle that their parent club recently got into, then they should be fine. For now, they’ve got a solid foundation with a nice visual identity.

What do you think, though? Should they have strayed from their parent club’s identity, or was it a good idea to keep their design in-house?