NBA Logos

Oklahoma City Thunder Logo - Design and History

 Oklahoma City Thunder Logo - Design and History

The Oklahoma City Thunder are a professional basketball franchise based in Oklahoma City, Oklahoma. They play in the Northwest Division of the Western Conference in the National Basketball Association. Formerly known as the Seattle SuperSonics, the team relocated to Oklahoma City in 2008. Shortly after announcing the move to Oklahoma City, the team announced their name as the "Thunder" and unveiled their logo. Since the team was moved to OKC, the team has had a good run of success in 2011 and 2012 with its stars like Kevin Durant, James Harden and Russell Westbrook.

The logo contains the following key elements

  1. The center of the logo is a shield with the basketball to represent the game.
  2. The color scheme is apparently a rainbow of some kind and consists of the following colors.

               - Light Blue which is the color found on the Oklahoma state flag
               - Thunder Red - a mixture of colors that represents the state's two big sports schools - Oklahoma University and Oklahoma State University
               - Sunset Yellow

     3. The letters, OKC - Oklahoma City and the team name 'Thunder' are quite prominent and use the dark blue color

The name Thunder was the most popular choice for the team logo, primarily because of the powerful storms that occur in the area know as Tornado Alley. Wind, Barons, Marshalls, Energy and Bison were some of the names under consideration.

Overall the logo is quite plain and does not make me go "Wow". The logo does not have anything obvious to represent the state or the city (like the Denver Nuggets logo shows the snow capped peaks). It does not have anything to represent the Thunder, except perhaps the orange and blue streaks that look like Lightening.

Other notes on the logo 

- The Thunder worked with Ackerman-McQueen, Oklahoma City, and the NBA to develop the logo.

- The logo was launched with the AC/DC's big hit Thunderstruck".

The logo depicted on this page is a registered trademark. Use of the logo here does not imply endorsement of the organization by this site.

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