The Washington Redskins New Name and Logo
The former Washington Redskins now play as the Washington Commanders, with a burgundy-and-gold W as the current primary logo. Compare that mark with the interim Football Team identity.
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The current name and mark
The franchise long known as the Washington Redskins now operates as the Washington Commanders. The current primary logo is a single-letter athletic W: a heavy, geometric capital filled in burgundy and edged in gold. That W, together with the Commanders wordmark, is the identity in use for new artwork, merchandise, and vector production. The Native American profile, spear, and Redskins script belong to the retired brand, not the current one.
Three identities to keep separate
Searches for a “new Redskins logo” usually collapse three successive marks into one question. For design work, treat them as separate assets with different names, geometry, and status.
| Era | Name | Primary mark | Status for new work |
| Through 2019 | Washington Redskins | Pictorial Native American profile, plus spear and script wordmarks | Retired identity |
| 2020–2021 | Washington Football Team | Simple burgundy W with gold outline and a stacked team wordmark | Interim identity |
| 2022–present | Washington Commanders | Custom burgundy W with gold trim, plus Commanders wordmark | Current identity |
The name change is documented public record: the Redskins name and related pictorial marks were dropped in 2020; the club played two seasons as Washington Football Team; the Commanders name and W lockup were introduced in 2022. Whether a file is current depends on which of those three systems it belongs to, not on whether the filename says logo, svg, or ai.
What the Commanders W looks like
The Commanders primary mark is a letterform, not a scene or mascot portrait. On sight it reads as a dense, blocky W with a continuous gold contour around a burgundy interior. The strokes are thick enough to hold at helmet and cap size. The center peak and outer legs are cut as hard geometric planes rather than calligraphic curves, which is the main visual break from both the old profile illustration and a generic condensed sans W.
- Fill: burgundy, the club’s long-running primary field color.
- Outline: a gold (yellow-gold) stroke that traces the entire letter.
- Construction: athletic block W, heavy stroke weight, angular apex and legs.
- Presentation: often the W alone as the cap and helmet mark; in lockups it sits with WASHINGTON over COMMANDERS in heavy condensed caps.
- Role: this is the current primary logo for the franchise formerly called the Redskins.
Those points describe what is visible on official applications. They are not a construction grid. Stroke width, outline offset, corner treatment, and exact color values are not supplied in this brief, so they should be taken from current brand artwork rather than traced from a photo or guessed from a filename.
The Washington Football Team mark
If the question is specifically the Washington Football Team logo, the answer is the 2020–2021 interim W, not the Commanders W and not the retired profile. That mark was also a burgundy W with gold outline, paired with the words Washington Football Team. It was a stopgap athletic letter, simpler and less customized than the later Commanders W. The two letters share color and the idea of a W, but they are different drawings. Using a Football Team file in a Commanders context, or the reverse, mixes two official eras.
Working with vector assets
For readers evaluating redesigns or preparing vector files, the practical next step is to name the era first, then match artwork to that era. Current production should use Commanders artwork. Historical, documentary, or comparison work may need the Football Team W or the retired Redskins pictorial set, labeled as such. A downloadable file being in vector form does not make it official, complete, or cleared for reuse. Permission to reproduce a professional sports mark does not follow from the file being available.
- Identify which mark you need: retired Redskins pictorial, Football Team W, or current Commanders W.
- Obtain outlines from current official or licensed artwork, not from a screenshot or an unlabeled web file.
- Keep burgundy fill and gold outline as the visible color system; do not invent palettes.
- Do not rebuild the W from a photo and call the result official geometry.
- Treat secondary items (wordmark, helmet application, any crest) as separate assets until you have current artwork for each.
What this brief does not specify
Exact vector construction, official color formulas (Pantone, CMYK, RGB, or hex), outline weights, and a full secondary-mark set are not in the supplied material. Helmet, crest, and alternate lockups are therefore out of scope here. Licensing, trademark classes, and commercial reuse terms are also unspecified; availability of a logo file is not evidence of a right to use it. For production, the informed next step is to pull current Commanders artwork from an authorized brand source and compare it against the era you actually need.