Rams Logos—A Brief, Unofficial History

OPINION
By John Turney

Yesterday, the Rams released new colors, a new primary logo, a secondary logo, and wordmarks via the Internet. Here are a few of the key players identified in the video released by the Rams—

Kevin Demoff, Rams COO, Had a habit of trolling Rams fans vis Twitter. Here he is
wearing a hat with red it in the design, apparently for giggles.

Steve McClard, Project Lead, Nike. Stated the team "got it right"

Shandon Melvin, VP, Creative Director, NFL

The reviews were mixed, to be generous. It's accurate to say that the creative team at Nike and the Rams and the NFL "didn't get it right the first time", at least according to the majority of the fans.

We've combed through a lot of fan comments and we think this summation is fair to what we've found online—
Colors—A

Rams Royal and Sol. Taken together it literally means Sun King Ram

Primary Logo—F

Rams fans Panned it. (Pan is the Greek goat god—sorry, couldn't resist). The horn's spiral is derived from the Fibonacci sequence—paging Dr. Robert Langdon.

Additionally, according to an interview given to Rich Hammond of The Athletic, Rams COO said  there was to be "grand debut throughout Los Angeles on the night of Saturday, March 21, to coincide with the start of Aries in the zodiac, which is the month of the ram." (Could this get more pagan?—maybe they need to page Tom Hanks to reprise his role in 'Dragnet'.)

Said Jack Youngblood via email, "Looks like the Chargers to me. That isn't us". Former longtime Rams Public Relations Director Rick Smith concurred on Twitter "Rams logo is soft.  I don’t see any football toughness in it. Honestly, at first blush, I thought I was looking at a Chargers lightning bolt."

There is even a Change.org petition asking Rams to reconsider. You can see it HERE. The goal for the petition is 5,000 signature. As of this posting they have nearly 4,000. Will Demoff take it seriously? Unknown.

Secondary Logo—B
Rams fans were more positive about this logo.

Though very quickly Twitter artists improved on it, according to many commentators. The top on increased the angle of the head and widened and colorized the eye and widened the cheek, the second added the wordmark and a mouth to the Ram head and is a deeper blue.

Wordmark—C

Boring. It looks like a basic Arial or Copperplate font. Comments like that we gleaned from Ram boards. Not awful. Not stunning. Not the work of, as Kevin Demoff called it "world-class artists", that's for sure. We give it a C. That's maybe generous.

Logo lockup—F

If the primary logo fails then this does, too. Many said they see a crescent moon. Some see DaVinci's seashell. Some see a Los Angeles Charger lighting bolt. People should immediately see a Ram horn. Many don't.

crescent moon

Side-by-side of new logo and Chargers logo, there is some resemblance

The Ram horn is their brand, their identity. If anyone sees anything other than a horn then there is a problem. A big one.

So, five categories and we have an A, an F, a B, C, and F.

GPA—1.8 or a C-/D+


Walk Down Memory Lane
Here are past Rams logos, some not official, though they did appear on Rams stationary in 1937 (the red and black ones) and some were used on officially licensed Rams merchandise in the 1970s. The white Rams head logo (no gold horn)  we are dubious of because it only appears in style guides in the black and white sections. And we never saw it after 1973 or so. We think the real logo was the Rams helmet with grey facemasks from 1974-80.

On 1937 Cleveland Rams official Stationary

Also on the official 1937 Cleveland Rams stationary when the team colors were red and black

Purported to be Rams logo from 1941-42

This Rams head logo is from the 1946 Rams Media Guide. It is less
 refined than the 1946-47 versions that appeared on game programs but 
enough alike to be considered the same we suppose.

Purported to be Rams logo from 1944-50 but it seems to have first
shown up in 1946 on the championship pendant and on game programs and is 
not seen after 1947 but the above version did appear on the 1946 Media Guide.

Purported to be Rams logo from 1951-69, though we've seen several different
iterations with this particular logo, including all-white (seen below). However, it was first used
 in 1948 on the Media Guide and was also was used after 1970. (see below).

This is the Rams head that is claimed to be the 1970-82 logo, but we are dubious of it. We never saw
it on anything. Also, it only is shown in the black-and-white portion of the official NFL-style guide books. When we have seen it used it was in color, it's been in blue outline, not black. 

Though never documented, when used, this is what the logo looked like, which makes sense
because the Rams colors were blue and white for a portion of the time this logo was said to be "official"

Not official, but did appear on officially licensed merchandise in the early 1970s, sometimes
offset with a light blue, perhaps to make it "pop"

Again, not official, but did appear on licensed merchandise in 1973 and 1974. Perhaps
in other years as well. It was used when Rams went back to blue and gold.

We saw this, along with the two-bar iteration, far more than the black-and-white Rams head logo in the decade of the 1970s.
Though this was not said to be "official" you'd be hard-pressed to find a Rams head logo in the late 1970s

We saw this more than the single-bar versions and always felt that this was the primary logo of
the mid-to-late 1970s. It was on most of the pennants, jackets, t-shirts, etc., of that time frame. 

In 1981 the Rams changed the facemask to blue, but this is said to be the official logo from 1983-88

The official logo from 1989-94

The official logo from 1994-99 when Rams left Anaheim for St. Louis

The new Ram head logo in "millennium blue and new century gold". 2000-2016

Same Rams head as in St/ Louis but in navy and white. 2017-2019

The new Ram head in Ram royal and Sol. 2020—

As mentioned above, the long-time Rams head first made its appearance
in 1948, not the early 1950s which is what the Rams PR department said in its release.

1953 Media Guide

1954 Rams Media Guide

The 1955 Rams Media Guide

As mentioned the yellow-horned logo was used after 1970 when it
was said to be defunct.

One of the few places we've ever seen the white Rams head
but as we mentioned it was blue, not black outlines.

Felt pennants are also a way to gage what was used since in the early days it was like the Wild West, you could put any Ram on a pennant and "Los Angeles Rams" and sell it and, apparently, not get sued—

Then it became more uniform—

Here is a page from a 1970s style guide, perhaps 1973. You can see the Ram head logo is shown in the black and white section...with the helmets that were to be used in magazines and newspapers that were not yet color. These style guides were to help media and merchandisers and advertisers get the reproductions as accurately as possible. They exist to this day (see top photo)

For more (and better) information we recommend going to Uniwatch.com. Click HERE.
We also recommend you go HERE for even more pertinent info by SportsLogos.Net

Paul Lukas (Uniwatch.com) and Chris Creamer (SportsLogos.Net) are the home run kings of sports uniforms and logos.

Next up, what the Rams brain trust and Nike will do with the uniforms. Thee is no ETA for them.