The WNBA’s newest team, the Golden State Valkyries, have a new logo that takes inspiration from both their mythological namesake and a landmark much closer to home—the Bay Bridge.
The result is franchise branding with a double meaning that goes pretty hard in the paint, at least according to the initial response from fans.
The Valkyries’ logo plays into that symbolism in a few key ways. Let’s tackle the obvious first: the logo is a set of Valkyrie wings.
Then there’s the wings’ spine, down the logo’s center, which is really two visual symbols in one. It’s shaped like a Valkyrie’s sword, “a symbol of courage, power, and authority,” according to the team. But it also represents the Bay Bridge, a major landmark that connects Oakland, where the Valkyries’ practice facility and front office are located, to San Francisco, where the team will play its home games. (The bridge works overtime for Bay area franchises: the team’s NBA counterpart, the Golden State Warriors, also use it in their logo.)
Look closer and you’ll notice its V-shaped wings have a total of 13 lines: a reference to the fact that it’s the WNBA’s 13th team, and arranged to resemble bridge cables.
The team’s color palette is black and “Valkyrie Violet.” It’s a lighter shade of purple than used by the Sacramento Kings and Monarchs, though detractors online brought up the color schemes’ similarities.
Amanda Chin, the Warriors’ senior vice president of marketing, led work on the Valkyries identity along with Cartwright, an agency whose client roster includes the Detroit Pistons, LA Dodgers, and Chicago Fire. The agency has shown a love for infrastructural logos before in their mark for the LA Clippers, which depicts a clipper ship from a similar vantage point.
There was never much of a question what the team name would be, according to Chin. “Through surveys and social media, the name that continued to come up the most, by far, was ‘Valkyries,'” Chin said in a statement. The design team made a point to listen to fans during the brand identity development process, she adds.
The Valkyries are the first new WNBA team since the Atlanta Dream in 2008, and the team says they had surpassed 7,500 season ticket deposits for their first season before even announcing a name. (Earlier this year, the back-to-back defending WNBA champion Las Vegas Aces became the first team in league history to sell out its season ticket packages, which numbered about 8,600.) Broadly, the WNBA has plans to make 2024 its biggest season ever.
In quote tweets to the Valkyries’ branding announcement, commenters praised the intentionality behind the design, and one person called the new logo “some of the best branding in pro sports.” While the Valkyries’ on-court performance is yet to be determined, it seems the Valkyries logo is already a winner.