The Knicks’ logo survived decades by refusing change

Designed by Michael Doret and unveiled in 1992, the New York Knicks logo still anchors the team’s identity today—despite more than $1 billion in renovations at Madison Square Garden, a march to and beyond the 1999 NBA Finals, and minor tweaks like an all-caps

For the New York Knicks, almost everything has moved forward since the team last made it to the NBA Finals in 1999—everything from the look of the players’ shorts to more than $1 billion in renovations for their home at Madison Square Garden.

But one thing has stayed stubbornly intact. The Knicks are still using the same core logo, designed by Michael Doret and unveiled in 1992, a mark that has outlasted the usual churn of pro sports branding.

The logo is built around the Knicks’ name written out in bold. blocky letters above a basketball and on top of an inverted triangle. Since then, the blue-and-orange color palette has been tweaked, and an all-caps “New York” was added in 1995. Still, the form of the logo is the same today as it was then.

“I think that that logo and I think that the team itself has become so iconically New York,” Doret tells Fast Company. “I just love it.”

Doret didn’t come to the job as an outsider trying to reinvent the team from scratch. He grew up in New York City near Coney Island, inspired by the city’s graphic environment. Even after he moved cross country to Los Angeles. he kept rooting for the Knicks—and he describes New York as something more internal than aesthetic.

“New York is in my bones,” he says. “but it’s more like it’s in my brain.”

The logo’s origin wasn’t a spreadsheet exercise. Doret describes it like the first step of sculpting—turning ideas into shapes and then shaping again.

“I have to sit down and just start playing with forms and shapes and colors and so on,” he says. “And every time I put a piece of tracing paper over another sketch, I’m whittling more into that wood until I find the form that’s pleasing to me.”

The Knicks hiring context matters, too. When the NBA creative director, Thomas O’Grady, hired Doret for the Knicks job, the request was relatively specific: the logo should incorporate the Empire State Building. Legal concerns, however, kept that landmark out of the final draft.

The finished logo doesn’t reference any New York City landmarks directly. Instead. it uses the colors from the city flag and adds a 3D perspective to give the design a distinct point of view. The shadowing and the shape of the letterform in “Knicks” make it feel as if you’re looking up at the logo from below—like a building.

“The Empire State Building may not have made it to the final product,” Doret says in describing the final effect, “but the experience of looking up at the Empire State Building is there.”

In a city crowded with iconography—from skyscraper silhouettes and subway signage to logos like Milton Glaser’s “I Heart New York” and the “NY” monogram of the Yankees—the Knicks logo has come to represent New York pride with unusual staying power. That sense of permanence is one reason it has become so easy to reference—even when people are being playful.

When Zohran Mamdani, the mayor of New York City, used a parody version of the logo in his 2025 electoral campaign, Doret said he was amused.

“I actually loved it,” Doret says. “It’s become so pervasive that everybody wants to be a part of that.”

That matters because branding in sports is often a cycle of motion: city and mascot changes, extended losing streaks, or a simple desire for something new can push teams into regular rebrands.

The Knicks have been the rare counterexample. They’ve evolved around the logo rather than replacing it.

Doret’s other Knicks work has also continued to surface over the years. Since 1995, the team has used a “NYK” insignia he designed as a secondary logo. And in 2024, the fashion house Kith released a collection using alternate logos from his sketches and concepts.

But the central decision—keeping the long-running logo—has remained the same.

“Sports brands are often tempted by the same forces that affect every brand, which is the pressure to stay modern,” said Sunny Bonnell, cofounder and CEO of the branding agency Motto. “Some updates work. Many age quickly because they’re responding to a trend rather than expressing a timeless idea.”

Bonnell argues the Knicks show what happens when familiarity becomes strategy rather than nostalgia. The investment isn’t just sentimental; it’s deliberate.

Most teams would have rebranded at some point between two NBA finals appearances nearly three decades apart. By sticking with their longtime logo, the Knicks turned a decision that might look conservative in sports into a brand bet that is still paying dividends today.

New York Knicks Michael Doret Knicks logo Madison Square Garden renovations branding sports marketing Sunny Bonnell Motto Kith Zohran Mamdani