Logo
The Steelers have had several logos in the early part of their history, among them including the crest of Pittsburgh, a football with Pittsburgh's then-smoggy skyline, as well as a construction worker hanging onto a chain holding a pennant. Another logo showed the worker punting a football on a steel beam. It is rumored that controversial mascot Steely McBeam was based on the latter logo.
Since 1963, the team has used a stencil typeface for their script logo. Since then, many team-related typefaces have used stencil font.
The team's current primary logo was introduced in 1962 and is based on the flag originally designed by Pittsburgh's U.S. Steel and now owned by the American Iron and Steel Institute (AISI). Ironically, it was Robert Sexton, an employee out of the Pittsburgh office of Cleveland-based Republic Steel, that suggested the Steelers adopt the industry logo. It consists of the word "Steel" surrounded by three astroids (hypocycloids of four cusps). The original meanings behind the astroids were, "Steel lightens your work, brightens your leisure, and widens your world." Later, the colors came to represent the ingredients used in the steel-making process: yellow for coal, orange for iron ore, and blue for scrap steel. While the formal Steelmark logo contains only the word "Steel," the team was given permission to add "ers" in 1963 after a petition against AISI.
While the logo still resembles the original Steelmark logo, the team has made subtle changes over the years in order to own a trademark on the logo, most notably making the three astroids thicker in shape and changing the orange astroid to red. The Steelmark logo itself has actually been heavily redesigned since then, using two variants, one of which uses a more modern design and uses three shades of blue for the astroids while another one used concurrently has a strong resemblance to the recycling symbol. One alternate variation the team used in the 1980s—though rarely used today—combined the logo with the team's signature stencil-script typeface, replacing the regular "Steelers" typeface used with the team's longtime script logo.
Read more about this topic: Logos And Uniforms Of The Pittsburgh Steelers