Washington Redskins to Commanders: Evaluating Logo Changes
How Washington’s NFL marks moved from the retired Redskins profile to the Commanders W, and what that means for vector files, editing, and trademark use.
Contents
The logos under discussion
The Washington Redskins identity and the Washington Commanders identity are separate logo systems. The long-running Redskins primary was a pictorial Native American profile. That name and logo were retired in 2020. After an interim Washington Football Team period, the club introduced the Commanders brand in 2022, built around a geometric letter W, supporting stars, and the franchise burgundy-and-gold palette. Files labeled as Redskins artwork are historical marks. Current official identity work uses Commanders artwork.
How the identity developed
Public record supports a three-stage sequence rather than a single redraw. For decades the franchise competed as the Redskins, with a Native American profile as the primary logo most associated with the club. In 2020 the team retired that name and logo. From 2020 into 2022 it operated as the Washington Football Team, using simplified lettering instead of a pictorial successor. In 2022 it launched the Washington Commanders name and a new mark system centered on a block W.
| Period | Identity | Primary artwork |
| Decades preceding 2020 | Washington Redskins | Pictorial Native American profile; now retired |
| 2020–2022 | Washington Football Team | Simplified lettering; no pictorial successor to the profile |
| 2022–present | Washington Commanders | Geometric W lettermark with stars; burgundy, gold, and black in typical lockups |
Designer credits for each historical drawing, original construction grids, path counts, and official vector delivery specifications are not established in the evidence available for this article. Treat those points as gaps unless confirmed from the club, the league, or a named design record. The visual readings that follow are interpretation.
What changed in the drawing
Interpreted as a design move, the shift is from a pictorial mascot to a lettermark. The retired profile depended on illustrated facial features, feathers, and shading. Those details are harder to keep consistent when the art is reduced, embroidered, or converted to a small number of spot colors. The Commanders W is a constructed letterform with hard edges and supporting stars. That kind of geometry typically travels more cleanly as true vector paths: it scales without a new drawing, and it can be built as flat color fields rather than as a shaded illustration.
Continuity sits mainly in color. Burgundy and gold remain the franchise colors, so a vector palette for Commanders work still orbits those hues, often with black and white in lockups. The drawing itself does not continue the old profile. Tracing, auto-tracing, or “updating” a Redskins head into a W produces a hybrid that is not the official system.
Vector files and construction
A production vector logo is a set of editable paths, usually with defined spot or process colors and separate lockups for the mark, wordmark, and any secondary badges. A raster preview—PNG, JPG, or a bitmap placed inside an SVG or PDF—only shows how the mark looks at one resolution. When you open a file, the practical test is whether you can select individual outlines and color fields. If you can only place or resample a picture, you do not have editable vector artwork. A filename ending in SVG, EPS, AI, or PDF does not, by itself, prove that live paths are present.
Because the Redskins and Commanders systems are different drawings, they belong in different asset families. Mixing the retired profile into a Commanders template, or using an older spear, letter R, or profile file as a stand-in for current brand work, produces the wrong identity. Interim Washington Football Team lettering is a third family and is not current Commanders artwork. Fan-circulated files should be treated as unverified until the paths, colors, and license are checked; official club or league artwork is the source of truth for construction.
brand-artwork/
redskins-retired/
wft-interim/
commanders-current/
primary-w/
wordmark/
lockups/- Keep retired Redskins marks, interim Football Team lettering, and Commanders marks in separate folders and naming schemes.
- Inspect the file: confirm live paths and color fields before treating it as master artwork.
- Distinguish a marketing preview from a construction file; previews are often flattened or outlined in ways that hide how the mark was built.
- Do not auto-trace a low-resolution helmet photo and treat the result as official vector construction; tracing infers shapes the original drawing may not use.
Trademarks, fonts, and editing rights
The retired Redskins name and logo remain protected as trademarks even though they are no longer the on-field identity. The Commanders name, W, wordmark, and related badges are likewise protected. Preparing a vector file for print, merchandise, or a mockup still requires the right to use those marks. Permission to download a logo is not permission to modify the artwork, use the fonts, or apply the trademarks. Fonts inside a lockup may be proprietary or custom; outlining type in a logo file does not transfer font-license rights for setting new text. For current brand work, specify the Commanders system. For historical reconstruction, archival Redskins artwork can be studied as a retired pictorial mark, with the same trademark caution.