The most visible aspect of the campaign is a pair of anniversary logos, one of which is being worn on team uniforms.
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These logos will be extensively deployed over the course of the 2016-17 campaign. Given the sheer number of visual impressions that will be attached to the art, the logos and the program will quickly become familiar to fans.
The visual program was developed by the Knicks’ in-house marketing and creative teams. They began work on the anniversary look during the middle of last season.
Sharon Otterman, Executive Vice President and Chief Marketing Officer for Madison Square Garden, says that the Knicks always envisioned it being but a single component within a larger, cohesive anniversary program.
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“When we began meeting and talking about what the 70th season would bring, we knew it wouldn’t just be a jersey patch, there would be an entire platform, theme nights, alumni activation, merchandise and more,” Otterman said. “We met with our photo services department and archivist to review archive photos of the team and boxes of old newspaper clippings to pull assets to help the design come together. We wanted to keep the heritage and form factor of our main logo, but we wanted to celebrate the anniversary as well.”
A look into the creative process reveals an extensive dive into the team’s visual history.
From an aesthetic standpoint, team anniversary logos need to comfortably fit the visual culture of the franchise, a tacit and understanding nod to a particular fan base.
From a structural perspective, these logos will need to work successfully across a staggering array of platforms. The visuals are being attached to a wide range of merchandise. They are also being activated on signage, press conference media walls and broadcast and printed materials. They appear on the web, of course, and are being used in applications both big and small.
The core logo carries a pretty simple message. It contains three elements: a large “70,” fronted by a ribbon reading “Est. 1946,” punctuated by the Knicks’ familiar primary logo. Take these three pieces, render the whole thing in the team’s signature blue and orange color palette and glue them together — and you have a logo. Sounds pretty simple right? Not so much.
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Multiple variations on the “70” theme were developed and presented to internal stakeholders. Ultimately, said Simon Bradley, Senior Vice President of Marketing Strategy and Consumer Engagement for MSG, “we wanted to have the ‘70’ be obvious and sit large, with the supporting elements working around it.
“All in all, we probably created over a dozen versions of different takes on the logo. We would remove some throughout the process as we received feedback from different departments including marketing, team operations and others. Although it was a process, it really helped shaped the logo into what it is today, and we are very happy with it.”
The Knicks refer to the second anniversary mark as their “heritage roundball” logo. It represents a bolder, more contemporary visual approach than the primary version seen on the uniforms. It’s being worn on the team’s shooting shirts, and it contains a subtle homage to the Knicks’ two championship seasons — two stars that flank the basketball at center.
Seventy years is a long time, and the Knicks had plenty of inspiration to draw from.
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The Knicks are a charter member of the NBA. They won the first game in league history on Nov. 1, 1946. The Knicks franchise represents an integral piece of New York City’s cultural identity, playing their home games at Madison Square Garden, the “Mecca of Basketball.”
The team is backed by a large, diverse fan base, and the Garden is usually filled to capacity, regardless of on-court success or failure. This is a savvy, passionate group of fans. They live and work in the media capital of the world. This anniversary look is both celebratory and sophisticated, and it is accompanied by the slogan “New York Forever,” a relevant motto for a community of enthusiasts that has seen its share of highs and lows.
Throughout their seven decades, the Knickerbockers’ on-court look has been a consistent one. The team’s core colors are orange and blue, which are also the official colors of the City of New York. Today’s uniforms closely resemble those worn by the championship teams of 1969-70 and 1972.
The 70th anniversary program features a color palette that embraces a vintage feel.
“We kind of knew from the start that we wanted to use our usual orange, blue and white,” Knicks Design Director Tarek Awad said. “Looking at our logo history, our colors never really changed, other than those three-four maroon years. Looking through the team’s archive of photos over seven decades, everything just looked darker. Maybe the fabric was darker back in the day, but through all of these old photos shot with film the uniform colors always looked darker.
“Furthermore, the darker blend of colors really brought out the history and created this vintage-y feel that will help tell the story of the anniversary. When you look at the combination of colors, you see tradition, something that’s not lost on the current fan with the current colors, it’s another subtle homage to the past.”
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The maroon color that Awad references was worn by the team from 1979-83, when the Knicks ditched orange and blue in favor of maroon and blue. Team president Mike Burke explained the move by saying that the traditional orange and blue were not “the most exciting combination of colors.” This set also stands out for another reason — the home jerseys read “Knicks,” the only time in franchise history that the team has featured their nickname on their uniforms.
Speaking of uniforms, the Knicks will wear commemorative throwback-inspired togs eight times this season. The design includes a solid blue “New York” wordmark as well as solid blue numbers, both of which evoke the team’s uniforms of their inaugural 1946 campaign.
Teams celebrate significant milestones all the time, but the Knicks are marking their seven decades of NBA play in a big way, an appropriate celebration for this perpetually visible cornerstone of New York City’s sports and cultural landscape.
