Sacramento Monarchs
1997 - 2009
A purple and black letter "M" forming a butterfly queen holding a basketball. Wordmark below "SACRAMENTO" in silver on top and "MONARCHS" in sliver on a black outlined background.
Monarchs Wordmark Logo
The Sacramento Monarchs were a professional basketball team that played in the Women's National Basketball Association (WNBA) from 1997 to 2009. The franchise was based in California's capital city, and it quickly became one of the most successful teams in the WNBA. One of its most recognizable features was its logo, which featured an iconic monarch butterfly as its focal point. In this blog post, we'll take a look at how this logo has evolved over time and what it means for fans today.
When the Monarchs first joined the league in 1997, they had two different logos: an abstract design featuring several stars with "Sacramento" written across them; and another depicting a stylized monarch butterfly with “Monarchs” written underneath it. Both designs were used during home games until 2001 when they settled on using just one—the latter—as their primary mark moving forward. This new iteration featured more detail than before including additional lines around each wing to give them added dimensionality along with sharper edges throughout its body shape overall giving off a much more modern feel compared to prior versions.
As part of rebranding efforts ahead of the 2003 season, the organization updated its main logo once again by introducing purple into the color scheme while also opting for a larger font size which allowed the wordmark portion to stand out even further against the rest of the graphic elements included within the composition. These changes made clear that the club wanted to emphasize the importance of name recognition among the fanbase, something that could be achieved through such subtle but effective modifications.
Even though the original version may have been popular among some diehard supporters who followed the team since the beginning, the overall consensus appears to show the current rendition being widely accepted amongst the wider audience due respect given both traditional aspects well as attention paid towards making sure the mark still looked relevant modern context. With all said and done there is no doubt Monarch’s wordmark will continue to represent the proud history success club earned during its tenure at WNBA in many years to come!
Sacramento Monarchs
1997 - 2009
Double lined wordmark "SACRAMENTO" in black on top and "MONARCHS" in black in a custom font on the bottom.
Font: Custom