Chiefs Primary Logo
The Kansas City Chiefs have a long and storied primary logo history that dates back to the team's founding in 1960. The original design was created by Lamar Hunt, founder of the American Football League (AFL). It featured an arrowhead with a Native American headdress on top, which symbolized strength and courage. This logo remained unchanged until 1972 when it was slightly modified to include more detail.
In 1988, the Chiefs changed their primary logo again as they moved from Municipal Stadium into Arrowhead Stadium; this time featuring two feathers crossed over each other inside an outline of an arrowhead shape. This version has been used ever since with only minor changes made for special occasions such as Super Bowl appearances or anniversaries of significant events in franchise history like winning their first championship in 1969 or hosting Monday Night Football for the first time in 1973.
Today, despite some slight alterations over its 60 years of existence, the current primary logo remains largely unchanged from its original form designed by Lamar Hunt when he founded AFL’s Kansas City franchise. Its simple yet powerful design has come to represent not just football but also loyalty and passion among fans who proudly wear it across all levels of fandom - whether at home games cheering on Patrick Mahomes or watching them win Super Bowl LIV after 50 years without a championship title!
1972 - Present
The Chiefs logo is a arrowhead design originally sketched by Lamar Hunt on a napkin. Hunt’s sketches, which were done on a napkin on a flight from Dallas to Kansas City, began with an interlocking “KC” inside a circle or an oval. Hunt’s inspiration for the interlocking “KC” design was the “SF” inside of an oval on the San Francisco 49ers helmets. Unlike the 49ers’ logo, Kansas City’s overlapping initials appear inside a white arrowhead instead of an oval and are surrounded by a thick chipped looking black border.
1963 - 1971
When the franchise moved to Kansas City in 1963, Bob Taylor was commissioned to produce a new logo that remained strikingly similar to his original incarnation. Taylor’s new rendition featured a Native American figure running with the same stride and holding the pigskin in the same manner as the gunslinger and a red tomahawk with the states of Missouri, Kansas, Nebraska, Oklahoma, Iowa and Arkansas serving as his backdrop.
1960 -1962
The American Football League’s Dallas Texans in 1960, featured a polished football toting gunslinger set over the state of Texas in red. The gunslinger is wearing cowboy boots and hat carrying a football and a gun. A design created by Bob Taylor, a cartoonist for the now defunct Dallas Times Herald.