{"id":857021,"date":"2026-06-10T08:02:01","date_gmt":"2026-06-10T08:02:01","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/857021\/"},"modified":"2026-06-10T08:02:01","modified_gmt":"2026-06-10T08:02:01","slug":"how-we-got-the-new-york-knicks-logo","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/857021\/","title":{"rendered":"How We Got the New York Knicks Logo"},"content":{"rendered":"

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\n Photo-Illustration: Curbed; Graphics: Michael Doret\n <\/p>\n

In 1991, illustrator and designer Michael Doret was a freelancer living in New York City, promoting his work in American Showcase and The Black Book \u2014 publications that were distributed to art departments, design studios, and advertising agencies. Some of his best known clients were Time magazine, the New York Times, Kiss, Paul Simon, and Columbia Records \u2014 he also designed a fall preview cover for this magazine<\/a> in 1977. But it was his sports work \u2014 his scorebook covers for the Los Angeles Dodgers, the Toronto Blue Jays, and the World Series logo for Major League Baseball \u2014that likely caught the eye of the NBA, which tasked Doret with designing a new logo for the New York Knicks. Since then, his design has become synonymous with the franchise and, by extension, the whole city. We asked Doret about the process behind creating it, along with his favorite rejects.<\/p>\n

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\n Michael Doret at work in his 14th Street loft in 1986.
\n Photo: Laura Smith\n <\/p>\n

Redesigning a logo sounds like a huge task. What exactly did the NBA ask for?\u00a0<\/strong><\/p>\n

There was very little directive about what the NBA wanted to see, which can be good or bad, because a designer really needs limitations to work with. But they did say, \u201cIf you can work the Empire State Building into any of these logos, that\u2019s one thing we\u2019d like to see.\u201d So if you\u2019re looking at those original rough sketches, you can see how I tried to do that.<\/p>\n

I had one in the version of the logo that\u2019s the most similar to the one now. But in the end, they had me take the building out, because I guess the folks at the Empire State wanted certain licensing fees and the NBA just didn\u2019t want to deal with that. The logo they finally chose doesn\u2019t have the Empire State Building in it, but it feels like it has height, like you\u2019re looking up at buildings or something and maybe suggesting a big city.<\/p>\n

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\n From left: <\/strong>An early sketch that incorporated the Empire State Building. Photo: Michael DoretPhoto: Michael Doret\n <\/p>\n

\n From top: <\/strong>An early sketch that incorporated the Empire State Building. Photo: Michael DoretPhoto: Michael Doret\n <\/p>\n

I know that the Empire State Building is obviously a very iconic building, but did you consider incorporating any others, like the Statue of Liberty or the Chrysler Building?\u00a0<\/strong><\/p>\n

We did consider the Statue of Liberty \u2014 that was another suggestion they had \u2014 and I may have even done some sketches with that, but it just really didn\u2019t lend itself to this. Also, the Empire State Building is the architectural icon of New York, but the Chrysler Building is harder to represent in silhouette. It might not even be recognized because what makes it unique is the sunrise motif, but that doesn\u2019t show up in silhouette the way the Empire State Building does.<\/p>\n

How many versions of the logo did you present by the end?\u00a0<\/strong><\/p>\n

The whole process was about six months of back and forth. And so I presented probably 15 or more sketches, but long story short, they eventually narrowed it down to the look of the one that they use now.<\/p>\n

These sketches are all hand-drawn. You didn\u2019t use any digital software at the time to create these, did you?\u00a0<\/strong><\/p>\n

Over the years, I\u2019ve scanned a lot of the work that was done in analog form \u2014 it was called pre-separated art. It is ink on vellum, and it\u2019s all black-and-white, and it has different overlays. For each overlay, I have to call out colors and so on. It was very complicated.<\/p>\n

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\n From left: <\/strong>Sketches for what would become the Knicks logo in use today. Photo: Michael DoretPhoto: Michael Doret\n <\/p>\n

\n From top: <\/strong>Sketches for what would become the Knicks logo in use today. Photo: Michael DoretPhoto: Michael Doret\n <\/p>\n

Looking back on your sketches now, what kind of feelings were you trying to evoke when you were designing a logo for the New York Knicks?<\/strong><\/p>\n

I can\u2019t cite a reason why I might do something a certain way, but I feel when I\u2019m doing it that this is working somehow.<\/p>\n

It all goes back to my influences growing up in New York in the \u201950s. I grew up in Sheepshead Bay and I was very near Coney Island, so I usually ended up bicycling over there with my friends and going to Nathan\u2019s and going on the bumper cars.<\/p>\n

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\n Doret in the 1950s in Coney Island.
\n Photo: Michael Doret\n <\/p>\n

Growing up in that environment was pretty incredible because I was exposed to all the banners on the rides, the colorful way things were painted, the roller coasters; everything was bigger and bolder and more colorful than life, so that kind of worked its way into my work. So much so that at some point years ago, I looked back at my work and suddenly realized that I just see Coney Island in a lot of the work that I do.<\/p>\n

Another influence was Times Square. My dad worked there, so after school, a lot of times I\u2019d just take the train in or go if I had a half-day. Then it was just unbelievably incredible with the gigantic billboards. There\u2019d be the Camel cigarette billboard that would be blowing smoke, or on top of Bond\u2019s, there was a gigantic billboard with an actual waterfall and two giant semi-nude figures flanking it. For a young kid to be seeing all this, it just boggled my mind. All these things were stored away and came out in my work years later.<\/p>\n

Tell me about the design the NBA ended up choosing for the logo.\u00a0<\/strong><\/p>\n

When I was working on this assignment originally, I always had in the back of my mind that clients always say, \u201cShoot for the moon,\u201d but in the end, they get very timid. So what I did, and I think I was right about this, is design something that\u2019s really a progression from the logo that they had before; that\u2019s what they\u2019re actually using now. I think the original was done in the \u201960s, where it was dimensional letters over a ball. So I just decided to take those elements and rearrange them to make a better logo. I wouldn\u2019t say it\u2019s a concession, because I did what I wanted to do, but I pulled back and just tried to make something that was the next stage of the logo that they were working with at that time.<\/p>\n

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\n From left: <\/strong>Photo: Michael DoretPhoto: Michael Doret\n <\/p>\n

\n From top: <\/strong>Photo: Michael DoretPhoto: Michael Doret\n <\/p>\n

Walk me through your favorite alternates that ultimately didn\u2019t get chosen.\u00a0<\/strong><\/p>\n

This one above is probably one of my favorites of the alternate logos. I just really liked creating those really thick, chunky letters and everything just seemed to fall into place in that one.<\/p>\n

I also love these:<\/p>\n

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\n From left: <\/strong>Photo: Michael DoretPhoto: Michael Doret\n <\/p>\n

\n From top: <\/strong>Photo: Michael DoretPhoto: Michael Doret\n <\/p>\n

Letter forms is what I\u2019m all about, and that\u2019s set that apart from typography. This one with the Empire State Building with the Y wrapped around it \u2014 you won\u2019t find a font like that in any of my other pieces. I decided to do a bow-tie shape on this one, and the letter forms, which follow the curves on the top and the bottom \u2014 which are kind of more vertically oriented letters \u2014 all evolved from the design of that particular logo. I like to think that the letters emerged from the design itself.<\/p>\n

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\n From left: <\/strong>Other rejected sketches for the Knicks logo. Photo: Michael DoretPhoto: Michael Doret\n <\/p>\n

\n From top: <\/strong>Other rejected sketches for the Knicks logo. Photo: Michael DoretPhoto: Michael Doret\n <\/p>\n

I\u2019ve noticed some of your designs recently show up again on Kith apparel.\u00a0<\/strong><\/p>\n

I had a blog going years ago where I decided to tell the story of all these logos. I thought that they really deserved to be seen. So I posted the sketches on my blog and it got some attention. Years later, Kith somehow came across my blog post. They wanted to collaborate with me to do a Knicks\/Kith streetwear collection using some of my designs for the fall of 2024, and take some of my sketches from the 1990s to completion.<\/p>\n

(You can still see some of Doret\u2019s designs on Kith pieces here<\/a>.)<\/p>\n

\n Clockwise from top left: <\/strong>Sketches of the Knicks subway-token design. Photo: Michael DoretPhoto: Michael DoretPhoto: Michael DoretPhoto: Michael Doret\n <\/p>\n

\n From top: <\/strong>Sketches of the Knicks subway-token design. Photo: Michael DoretPhoto: Michael DoretPhoto: Michael DoretPhoto: Michael Doret\n <\/p>\n

You also designed the Knicks subway-token logo, which was a secondary logo used on jerseys and apparel.\u00a0<\/strong><\/p>\n

Yes, I presented the idea of the token logo to the NBA with all the original work that I did back in 1991. And so what happened was I presented not just the token, but there were several other ideas for monograms because I thought they should have a logo that was kind of a simpler logo that could be used for tiny applications or whatever, and that\u2019s why I designed the very simple NYK based on the NYC token logos. Unfortunately, most people don\u2019t even know what subway tokens are. Do you think a lot of people still know what they are?<\/p>\n

I think New Yorkers who have been here since maybe the early 2000s definitely do, but I think younger generations are probably scratching their heads at the thought of using coins to pay for anything.\u00a0<\/strong><\/p>\n

Yeah. That token and that NYC monogram were very iconic back in the day, and really, to me, it especially represented New York because it had an opening in the token, so you could turn it over, and either way you looked at it, you could read it.<\/p>\n

How does it feel to see your design \u2014 and variations of it \u2014 everywhere nowadays? <\/strong><\/p>\n

I just love how what I did has been so accepted by New York. It just makes me very proud to have been involved in any of this at all.<\/p>\n

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