A high school team will want to design a logo that is unique to their culture and school history. Each high school has an attachment to the region they are located in, the school’s name or namesake, founders of the school, or reputation held by their teams. High school logos range from simplistic to other schools where the school and team name are surrounded by elaborate details rendered in images and color.
High school students and even faculty are committed to a school they will spend many days and years attending or working at. Often, a camaraderie and sometimes a family environment evolves and the logo design for a team becomes an important representation of who they are. A high school team logo will more than likely be based on school colors, the type of team, mascots, and geographical location.
Too often, high school teams are guilty of copying, borrowing, modifying, or outright using copyrighted logos from professional sports teams. In November 2012, a website titled Uni-Watch published an online article titled, Whose Logos Are Most Popular Among Borrowers and Poachers? by Paul Lukas.1 Lukas found almost countless high school teams using identifying elements from professional team’s logos. He did not include high school team logos that had modified the logo design for a professional team enough that it hardly resembled any part of the original logo.
His results, which took hours of research, were unsettling. More than 225 high schools used logo designs and elements from AFC teams with the Patriot’s logo being the most used. In the NFC, there were much higher numbers toppling over 1,000 logos copied, and high school teams also used combinations of MLB baseball teams, NBA basketball team logos, and NHL Hockey league team’s logo designs. Some high schools copied copyrighted media images such as Superman, the logo for Shell Oil, and musician’s logos such as Van Halen.
Don’t look to already used and owned logos when creating a high school team logo. Choose a graphic designer, online logo design website, or make use of the talented art student in your school, and supervise the creation of a high school team logo that represents the school spirit and recognition—a logo they will use and allows the student body and staff to be proud to display. This logo will be visible at games, on hats, tee shirts, uniforms, in advertising, and many other applications.
It’s a good idea to review the school’s history and strengths so the team logo will reflect the entire school body. Most high schools have a long-standing motif already, and the high school team logos would be easily recognized if the logos were tailored to make use of the school colors, geographical location, and any mascots. Some schools may think it is a great idea to hold a logo design contest for students, faculty, parents, and community volunteers, and this may be a great way to come up with a design concept to present to your professional logo designer.
