A logo and name in sport means everything. It sets a sport, team or organisation apart from anything else. It's what makes them unique. With this, it's important to set a unique brand logo and identity. It's vital to create one that is simple and not overly complicated. At times, though, the team might want to change to possibly make a differences in such aspects such as results.
Miami Heat joined the National Basketball Association in (NBA) 1988. As a professional team, they play in the Eastern Conference league, where they hold three titles. The Heat’s early years were a bit lackluster. They performed well enough to earn a spot in the play-offs but always lost to another team.
As they were continually defeated in post-season games; morale began to drop. The team's overall brand wasn't fully solidified; they were recognisable and beloved by their hometown but they hadn’t yet found their footing. As Pat Riley was preparing to step down as coach, the team decided they needed a fresh new look. Following their disappointing defeat by the New York Knicks in the 1998-1999 play-offs, the Heat adopted a new logo.
The team was named the Heat thanks to a 1986 naming contest. At the time, the team was an expansion franchise, one of just two expansions approved for Florida. Co-founding partner, Zef Buffman, known for bringing Broadway performers to Miami, launched the contest, which pulled in 20 000 suggestions. To symbolise Miami’s hot temperatures, vivacious culture and the fiery energy of the sport, contestant Stephanie Freed suggested, "Miami Heat." The owners could not pass up such a perfect name, which received the most fan votes. It also resonated with Buffman, who wanted a name that could be easily translated into promotional material.
Naturally, the logo needed to reflect this fiery energy. The Heat ran a logo contest and Mark Henderson and Richard Lyons came up with the now-iconic flaming basketball. Their design resonated with fans, winning 34% of the vote out of 13 000 submissions.
The second and third place options both depicted a basketball wearing sunglasses. In 1999, in the wake of disappointing losses to the Knicks, the team decided to revamp their identity and reposition themselves as the champions they knew they were. Plus, it was the turn of the millennium and like many franchises, they were eager to modernise their look.
They were redesigning their classic uniforms, so it made sense to freshen up the whole brand identity. To modernise their logo, they swapped out the orange flaming ball for one with darker colours and a hand-drawn aesthetic. It was as though to affirm the powerful talent beyond the team's successes.
As the jerseys had also lost their orange hues and switched to a red-and-yellow design, the new logo would reflect this colour scheme as well. Without the orange gradient, the logo is better integrated with the team’s overall visual identity.
As the new millennium arrived, the Heat were ready to dominate the road again.
The Miami Heat logo is unusual in that it's asymmetrical, giving it a dynamic feel and edgy vibe. The wordmark is split across two lines that are not aligned in either direction. This gives the illusion of movement, as though the words are passing each other. It’s a clever suggestion of basketball players dashing across the court.
Then, the flaming basketball shoots downward at an angle across the vertical axis, pointing towards the word, "Miami." The design uses negative space very well here; balancing out the misaligned words with the dominant image. Meanwhile, the hoop ties it all together as the only symmetrical part of the design.
In typical 90s fashion, the original logo featured an orange gradient on the flaming basketball. The fiery hue stood in stark contrast to a solid black ring. The distinctive seams on the basketball are composed of negative space, giving the appearance of a fireball that happens to be shaped like a basketball.
The redesigned logo moved away from the fire imagery and instead emphasised the sport. The flashy orange gradient was replaced with a more realistic reddish-brown solid color and all seams were filled in with black. The trailing flames that appear above the hoop were now the only ones coloured orange, as though to symbolise the fierce energy behind the shot.
To counterbalance these strong hues, the black ring was replaced by a white one with a black outline. This was another way to make the logo's imagery a bit more grounded in the real world.
The Miami Heat has some valuable lessons for brand strategists and logo designers alike. Many of the Miami Heat logo contests' entries depicted some mixture of basketball and sun imagery. In addition to a sunglasses-wearing basketball, there was a sun with a basketball at its center (and vice versa). These focused too much on a literal interpretation of the name. While Miami is famously sunny, the logo needed to capture the excitement and vitality of the new franchise and the city itself.
The flaming basketball worked because it was polyvalent, i.e. it carried several different meanings. It depicted the concept of, "heat" but also the force used to shoot the ball through the hoop. By using general flames instead of a sun or even a typical fire shape, it could represent fierce competition, passion for the sport, Miami’s vibrant culture and the warm climate all in one.
In September 1985, Orlando businessman, Jim L. Hewitt, approached Philadelphia 76ers general manager, Pat Williams, as they met in Texas on his idea of bringing an NBA team to Orlando. Intrigued by the potential of an Orlando-based NBA team, Williams became the front man of the investment group one year later, after he left the 76ers. On 19 June 19 1986, the two held a news conference to announce their intention of seeking an NBA franchise.
At the same time, Hewitt and Williams decided to hold a contest in the Orlando Sentinel newspaper to get names for their new franchise. Out of a total of 4 296 submitted entries, the names were subsequently narrowed to four: "Heat"; "Tropics"; "Juice" and "Magic". The last one, which had been submitted by 11 people, was picked after Williams brought his seven-year-old daughter, Karyn to visit in Orlando. She remarked that she liked Orlando because, "It was like magic."
On 27 July 1986, it was announced that the committee chose the Magic to be the new name of the Orlando franchise in the NBA. The name, "Magic" alludes to the area's biggest tourist attraction and economic engine Walt Disney World, along with its Magic Kingdom, highlighting its corporate theme of magic. Hewitt added that, "You look at all the aspects of Central Florida, and you find it really is an exciting place, a magical place."
Many, including Williams himself at first, thought that Miami or Tampa were better locations in Florida for a franchise. At the time, Orlando was a small city without a major airport or a suitable arena. Hewitt brought investors such as real estate developer, William DuPont, Orlando Renegades owner, Don Dizney and Southern Fruit Citrus owners, Jim and Steve Caruso and talked the Orlando city officials into approving an arena project. Meanwhile, Williams gave presentations to NBA commissioner, David Stern and the owners of the other teams of the league that the town was viable.
In April, the franchise committee recommended expanding by three teams, with two of the slots going to Charlotte and Minneapolis-St. Paul. The recommendation put the Orlando bid in doubt, since it advised that the state of Florida should only be allocated one team as part of the three-team expansion. This feedback put the planned Orlando franchise up against the Miami-based team, originally known as the Florida Heat and eventually named the Miami Heat. When both Miami and Orlando ownership groups made successful pitches, the expansion committee decided to expand by four teams, allowing both to have a franchise.
The Magic became the first-ever major-league professional sports franchise in the Orlando area, following an expansion fee of reportedly $32.5 million. They were one of the four new expansion franchises awarded by the NBA in 1987 along with the Charlotte Hornets, Miami Heat and Minnesota Timberwolves. The Magic hired Matt Guokas as the team's first coach, who helped the Magic select 12 players in the NBA Expansion Draft on 15 June 1989.
Orlando advertising agency, The Advertising Works, led by its president, Doug Minear, was responsible for the original Magic uniforms. The logo, featuring a basketball crowded by stars and the wordmark "Magic" with a star replacing the A, was created following meetings with Walt Disney World artists and over 5000 suggestions sent from around the country.
Stars would remain a primary feature of the logo once it was redesigned in 2000 to feature a comet-like basketball. Pat Williams first suggested the colours black and gold of his alma mater Wake Forest, but this was eschewed for various factors, including the local college UCF using the same scheme. Black would still be the primary colour in the scheme used by Minear, a trait shared by 16 other NBA teams. Other colours were an electric blue specially made by sporting goods manufacturer MacGregor, and silver.
The home uniforms were white with black pinstripes, featuring black numbers with blue trim and the road jerseys reversed the scheme while featuring, "Orlando" instead of the Magic wordmark. Given the standard mesh nylon worn across the NBA did not allow for pinstripes, the jerseys were made out of durene, a material with cotton on the underside and polyester bonded on the outside. The road uniform was changed to blue with white pinstripes in 1994–95, although the black uniforms remained in use as alternates
To me, it's always fascinating to find out the origins of teams/competition. As I alluded to in the introduction, each story is unique. There's no such thing as a generic story in sports. I don't really believe that changing a logo or brand will change a team's fortunes. However, when I see both logos for Miami Heat, I must prefer the one that is used today. A change of, "scenery" can create a change in attitude and possibly performances.
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