We just finished up with Super Bowl LIX (59), but the NFL is already looking ahead to the 2026 Super Bowl.
Next year’s Super Bowl, which concludes the 2025 NFL season, will take place on February 8, 2026 at the home of the San Francisco 49ers in Santa Clara, California. As such, the logo seeks to incorporate some imagery of the host city, and is heavy on bright colors, incorporates the Golden Gate Bridge, the San Francisco Bay, as well as trees and a partial view of the San Francisco skyline.
Of course, Santa Clara is about 45 miles away from San Francisco, but the logo will play up the city for which the 49ers were originally named.
Like all recent SB logos, this one incorporates the roman numerals for “60” (LX) along with the Lombardi trophy, which is presented to the winner of the Super Bowl.
The new logo features most of the colors of the rainbow (only orange seems to be excluded), and shows the Golden Gate Bridge in pink and red, while the SF Bay is yellow. Trees are both green and fuchsia, but at least the sky is blue. And after the past several years of Super Bowl logo conspiracy theories, it would be really difficult to try to “predict” next year’s participants based on the colors of the logo.
Next year’s Super Bowl will be on NBC, and they gave us our first look at the new logo late last evening.
Party’s at our place next year. 🏆 #SuperBowlLX
📺 NBC and Peacock pic.twitter.com/hO3HT1xfK2
— Sunday Night Football on NBC (@SNFonNBC) February 10, 2025
I think most of us will agree that since the NFL attempted to “standardize” the logos after Super Bowl 44, the newer logos have paled in comparison. Since SB 56 though, the logos have begun to reincorportate more colors and have tried to reflect the host city’s feel.
I’d actually say this may be the best SB logo since the standardization began.
Your thoughts on next year’s logo?
All i see is LIX, which I thought was this year’s Super Bowl
It was even worse with LI, LII, and LV.
That was during the stretch of time where they were going for that “all silver” look. At least with the last few they’ve been adding some color back into the logos so the Lombardi Trophy doesn’t end up looking like an additional I Roman numeral.
Are we standardizing? Or not? Why does it even need to exist?
Worst of both worlds now.
Not sure what your source is for the Super Bowl logo link, but 59 (and maybe 58) aren’t the final logos. Still a glorious illustration
The design inside the letters is good but the letters themselves looks off.
It looks like they made the logo up out of the primary subtractive colours: cyan: magenta and yellow.
Red is magenta + yellow (the bottom of the bridge), green is cyan + yellow (trees), blue is I guess the trees at left (cyan + magenta)
link
Good call Mike!
Thanks Phil. I don’t know anything about printing in the 21st century (I don’t even own a colour printer) but those colours will look familiar to anyone who printed from colour negatives in the 1980s.
I remember the first time I was “introduced” to CMYK — those four letters were on the front of a t-shirt someone was wearing during one of Paul’s early Gatherings in Brooklyn (not the one you were at). Paul immediately recognized it and talked to the guy (he wasn’t even a UWer … just a patron who happened to be wearing a t-shirt). Once my office got a YUGE industrial color copier about a decade ago, all the giant laser ink cartridges were not “red, blue, green” etc., but rather CMYK cartridges. And you had to be very careful installing them as they had a tendency to leak if you didn’t handle them properly.
Yes this is a CMYK pallete that has overlay so you see the transparencey of the shapes. Kinda 1990s vibe to it to me.
Vikings vs. Chargers?
Or Lions vs. Ravens
I’m not the biggest fan. It’s growing on me though.
It just feels a bit flat, I can’t explain why but it just does to me.
I do agree that the NFL probably put as many colors in it as they did to mess with the conspiracy theorists!
I think it feels flat because it largely IS flat! The logo lacks any piping, trim, beveling, or perspective effect that was common even in the dark years of Super Bowls 45-55. The Lombardi and the “Super Bowl” base have a little bit of a 3D effect to them, but the Roman numerals are fully flat unlike even this years logo, which had a slight angle to the numerals, creating an extremely subtle 3D effect.
I was thinking the same thing that they’re really getting away from the standardization. Hopefully in three years all traces of it are gone.
Vikings and Chargers
The midspan of the GG Bridge is just under 50 miles from Levi’s. Kinda like putting the Lincoln Memorial in the logo for a Baltimore Army-Navy game.
I was living in SF the last time the Superb Bowl was in “San Francisco”. For two weeks the whole city was taken over with SB signage and special events. The hotels were all full, and there was a Metallica concert downtown that I could hear from inside my apartment.
And then they played a football game 50 miles away, in a suburb of San Jose.
Was living in Alameda but working on Market St. in San Francisco during the SB “in” San Francisco. It was very amusing hearing people pretend to be surprised the game was an hour+ away from where they overpaid for their hotel.
It’s an odd choice when there’s a plain concrete overpass right next to Levi’s Stadium they could have used.
‘Manders vs. Ravens.
I am slowly becoming more and more adamant that the Roman numerals should have been retired after SB 49.
I am starting to like the format of the logos, because there is still a little bit of standardization (which I don’t think is entirely bad), but they are going back to actually being colorful logos, which I have liked in the past.
Also, I’m biased because I am a Packers fan, but I am seeing Packers vs. Ravens in the color schemes.
Looks like it’s the Titans vs Everybody!
A few small but interesting details: the bottom of the L doesn’t pass in front of the Lombardi Trophy. For 3 of the past 4 Super Bowls, aka the length of the current design “format”, the lower arm of the L has passed in front of the Lombardi Trophy. But now it’s shifted, and passes behind.
This is also the first Super Bowl in a LONG time to have the numerals completely flat and straight on, with no 3rd dimension, drop shadow, beveling, or perspective added to them. Depending on how you view “flat”, Super Bowl 38 in the 2003 season was the last time we had numerals formatted like this. (Or Super Bowl 43, but I’d argue those don’t count as “flat”)
Titans vs Green Bay with the yellow and blue! lol Conspiracy Theorists need to find a better use of their time!
The L looks too short and chunky. But at least they’re getting back to more colorful and city-inspired logos. The logos for SB 45-49 were just dreadful with the stadium depictions and the whole thing in silver. Perhaps the pendulum is swinging back the other way.
The next two are in California, so expect the LXI logo to features lots of palm trees and beaches and, I dunno, stars. Atlanta the following year is going to be somewhat challenging for this format. Peaches?
I noticed the clouds in the logo don’t totally block out the image it covers. I think it’s a nice nod to the persistent fog that covers the Bay Area. Clever
It’s obviously Green Bay Packers (trees on the right) vs California Sun (trees on the left). So obvious.
I miss the unique designs for the Super Bowl logos, but this was creative like 59 with the Golden Gate bridge
Super Bowl LX, featuring both the San Diego Padres and the Boston Red Sox in their City Connect jerseys.