An expansion franchise, a naming contest and a carved mask.

The Seattle Seahawks began as a civic campaign. English Wikipedia says that in June 1972 a group of Seattle business and community leaders, Seattle Professional Football Inc., announced that it wanted an NFL franchise for the city, and that in June 1974 the league awarded Seattle an expansion team. In December of that year the franchise agreement was signed by Lloyd W. Nordstrom, representing the Nordstrom family as majority partners in the consortium, with Herman Sarkowsky among the partners.

The name came from the public. Wikipedia says the club picked “Seattle Seahawks” on 17 June 1975 after an open naming contest; other entries included Skippers and Lumberjacks. “Seahawk” is another name for the osprey. The team played its first season in 1976, spent its early years in the Kingdome, and moved in 2002 into a new stadium on the same site, opened as Seahawks Stadium and now called Lumen Field.

The logo has an older source than the team. Wikipedia says the original 1976 mark was a stylised royal blue and forest green bird head based on Kwakwaka’wakw art masks, and that the heavy beak of the bird on the source mask suggests an eagle or thunderbird rather than an osprey. A University of Maine news story of 29 September 2025 says the original logo, unveiled in 1976, was inspired by a carved cedar transformation mask made by the Kwakwaka’wakw people of British Columbia, probably in the late 1800s or early 1900s. The university says the mask was once owned by the artist Max Ernst, later entered the collection of the UMaine graduate William Palmer, and was donated to the university, where it is kept at the Hudson Museum.

The link went unnoticed for decades. The same UMaine story says the mask was displayed in its open form, showing a human face that did not obviously resemble the bird, and that researchers at Seattle’s Burke Museum confirmed the connection in 2014. That year the mask travelled back to Seattle on loan to the Burke before returning to Maine.

From royal blue and silver to College Navy and Action Green.

The first uniforms were blue, green and silver. Wikipedia describes silver helmets and pants, royal blue home jerseys with white and green sleeve stripes and white numerals, and a white road jersey with blue numerals. The team wore black shoes for its first four seasons before switching to white in 1980. A 1983 update worked the logo into the arm striping and moved the television numbers from the sleeves to the shoulders, and the facemasks changed from grey to blue. In 1994 the club adopted Pro Block numerals.

A full redesign arrived on 1 March 2002, timed for the move to the NFC and the opening of the new stadium. Wikipedia says the wordmark was designed by Mark Verlander and the logo by the NFL Properties in-house design team. The palette shifted to a lighter “Seahawks Blue”, a darker “Seahawks Navy” and lime green piping. The bird kept its shape but gained an arched eyebrow and a forward-facing pupil that made it look more aggressive. The helmet moved from silver to Seahawks Blue after a fan poll; the club had wanted silver at home and blue on the road, but league rules allowed only one helmet. In September 2009 the team tried lime green jerseys with navy pants for a single season.

The current colours date from the change of uniform supplier. On 3 April 2012, Wikipedia says, Nike, which had taken over the league’s uniforms from Reebok, unveiled new Seahawks uniforms and an updated logo. The main colours became “College Navy” and “Action Green”, with “Wolf Grey” as an accent that replaced the old blue in the logo. Feather trims run across the crown of the helmet, and twelve feathers are printed on the neckline and down each pant leg as a nod to the fans, known as the 12s. The set included navy, white and grey jerseys. In 2016 the club added an all-Action Green alternate, first worn on 16 December 2016, and in July 2023 it introduced a throwback set based on the 1983–2001 design.

The newest uniform leans on the same idea. Wikipedia says the club unveiled a “High-Decibel Zone” rivalry uniform on 28 August 2025 in wolf grey and an iridescent green, with a soundwave graphic across the chest and shoulders, a chrome green helmet and the phrase “12 AS ONE” on the back of the helmet.

The owner changed in 2026. Wikipedia lists the Nordstrom family and Sarkowsky from 1976, Ken Behring and Ken Hofmann from 1988, Paul Allen from 1997, and the Allen estate, managed by his sister Jody Allen, from 2018. FOX 13 Seattle reported on 3 September 2026 that the sale of the team from the Paul G. Allen Trust to the family of Vinod Khosla had closed, with Neeru Khosla as controlling owner, Vinod Khosla as chairman and Neal Khosla as vice-chairman.

Design and documentation.

An American football club’s identity has to work at very different scales. The helmet logo is the mark people see first: a single shape on a curved shell, read from the upper deck and on a phone screen, so it is usually a bold silhouette with a clear outline and few colours. A wordmark then carries the name on jerseys, sidelines and broadcasts, often in a custom or heavily modified typeface with its own numerals for the back and shoulders of the jersey.

Alternate uniforms give clubs room to play. Throwback sets bring back earlier helmets and stripes for a game or a season, and all-over single-colour “colour rush” style sets push one team colour across helmet, jersey and trousers. Each alternate has to stay recognisable on television next to the opposing side, which is why contrast between home and away kits matters so much.

Sideline apparel — coaches’ jackets, caps, hoodies and staff polos — extends the same marks into retail, away from the field. In the stadium, the palette moves onto end-zone paint, the midfield logo, ribbon boards, wayfinding and concourse signs, where large flat areas of colour and simple type need to read from a distance and in floodlight.

One profile, redrawn twice.

The Seahawks have kept a single idea at the centre of the identity since 1976: a bird head in profile. The 1976 version used royal blue and forest green on a silver helmet. The 2002 redraw by the NFL Properties team kept the profile but sharpened the brow and moved the pupil forward. The 2012 Nike update swapped the old blue for wolf grey and paired the mark with College Navy and Action Green.

The connection to the source mask has become part of the club’s story. The University of Maine wrote in 2025 that the mask is back on display at the Hudson Museum and that its influence can be seen whenever the team plays at Lumen Field in its throwback uniforms. The 2014 loan to the Burke Museum brought the carving to Seattle for a few months.

The wider system is built around the 12s. Wikipedia says the club retired the number 12 jersey in honour of its fans on 15 December 1984, and that before each home game a giant 12 flag is raised at the south end of the stadium. The mascot Blitz has been on the sideline since 1998 and was joined by Boom in 2014, and from September 2006 a live augur hawk named Taima led the team out of the tunnel.

For a design guide, the Seattle Seahawks show how a single drawn profile can carry an identity through three palettes and two redraws, and how a cultural source becomes part of a team’s story. Compare the city’s baseball club in our Seattle Mariners brand guidelines, the league itself in our NFL brand guidelines and the club’s uniform maker in our Nike brand guidelines. For this guide we use college navy, action green and wolf grey with a condensed sans, an unofficial interpretation; no product or logo is reproduced.

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