patriots logo - round 2

Proposed New Patriot's Logo, click for larger view

A few years ago, I suggested that it was time for the Patriots to update their logo. They've had it for about half of the life of the franchise, prior to the current, flying Elvis design they had Pat the Patriot, a guy in a three point stance waiting to pounce. Pat lasted for the for about 30 years, and flying Elvis has been at it for another 30+ years. In a 2021 article, the folks at Upper Hand did a researched article which ranked the NFL logos good to bad, based on how people feel about them, using a series of metrics based on 7 different sports sites. They aggregated the data and the Patriots, I was not surprised to see, was ranked 28 out of 32 for their logo.

Graphically, the Patriots logo stinks, and people don't like it. There are others, who just love tradition and don't want to see things change. To those folks, I say this: Washington Commanders. their logo stinks too, by the way. this isn't college ball.

So what's wrong with the Pat's logo? It doesn't hold up. Part of the problem is the team name. Don't get me wrong, I'm not trying to change that, but the teams that are named after a "person," simply have a harder time, unless that person has some kind of strong visual iconography attached to it. The Vikings, for example, have a little something to work with. The Raiders? Nope. What does a raider look like? The Buccaneers? myeh, sort of a privateer, which a semi-legal pirate, from the Caribbean, so... Florida Pirate-y? The 49ers? What, I guy with a shovel?

Updated Version of my 2019 Logo

 

And the Patriots: A patriotic person, of the New England variety. So a guy in a tricorn hat? Again, not a lot of helpful iconography. So my thought, in 2019, was to take inspiration from the Flying Elvis logo, which includes some red stripes or ribbons trailing from his tricorn, and the white star on his blue hat, which obviously represent the stripes on the flag, and boil that down to try and eliminate the person represented by the Patriot. I came up with something similar to this, which I have since tweaked to eliminate the odd shape I had in blue. Its much more flag, or pennant-like. But maybe too much so, and maybe too close to what the Pats currently have.

 

Proposed Patriot's Logo on a Blue Background

That's where I started, and after looking at the logos that did best according to the Upper Hand research, I decided to simplify further, and go with the letters NE for New England, similar to what San Francisco, Green Bay, and even Kansas City did, AND still use the flag iconography that's built into the current logo, and the Patriot name. I used some curves to graphically express forward motion, and to recall the shapes of a football. I ran the white stripes through the letter forms to accentuate the action, and they recall gridiron lines on the field. I used a variation of the wordmark I came up with in 2019, but I removed the additional blue outline from the star as it was too similar to the Cowboys Lone Star logo. Its bold, recognizable, and easy to stitch on a hat.

On White Background with Wordmark