Creating an icon
While nodding to the Warriors name without using the tag that moved with the franchise to the Bay Area from Philadelphia in 1962, the Valkyries were free to develop an identity all their own. The Golden State Valkyries name received its own font—the sharp-edged, Nordic-influenced Valkyries Font—but needed an impressive foundation to rest it on.
For the team logo, Cartwright and Chin opted against a Warriors-style circle, instead embracing a V shape that represented the Valkyries’ name, victory and a “symbol of femininity.” It gave the logo a spine resembling both the tower of the eastern span of the San Francisco-Oakland Bay Bridge—connecting the team’s offices in Oakland and its Chase Center home court in San Francisco—and a valkyrie’s sword.
On each side of that spine are the suspension bridge’s cables that serve as both valkyrie wings and 10 wedges representing players on each side of a basketball court. Altogether, the logo contains 13 lines—noting the Valkyries’ place as the 13th team in the WNBA when they arrive next year.
Together, it has the retro-futurist look of ‘80s vector-graphic video games—not Cartwright or Chin’s intention, but still pointing toward the future. In the Warriors’ backyard, Cal and UC Berkeley women’s sports have won more than 70 NCAA Division I national championships combined, with Stanford’s Hall of Fame basketball coach Tara VanDerveer recording the most wins in collegiate history.
The National Women’s Soccer League (NWSL) introduced its Bay FC club to the area this season, while the Warriors’s Steph Curry and New York Liberty star Sabrina Ionescu were the top draw of NBA All-Star Saturday—attracting 5.4 million viewers to their three-point shootout.
“The Bay Area is an icon of progress and a technological haven for the world—on and off the court, we’re changing the game,” Chin said. “We fully intend to anchor the WNBA and change the WNBA for the positive, which may not be as overt in the logo design, but that is something we take into everything we do.”