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Introduction

When you pull on a Chicago Bears sweatshirt, you're not just wearing a piece of clothing. You're wearing over 100 years of football history. The navy blue. The burnt orange. The iconic "C." Every stitch carries a story  and most fans don't know half of it.

Whether you've been a Bears fan your whole life or you're just discovering one of the NFL's most storied franchises, understanding the history behind the Chicago Bears logo and colors makes wearing the team's colors feel that much more meaningful.

Let's take a deep dive into exactly how the Bears got their look  and why it still matters today.

From Corn Starch to the NFL: The Very Beginning (1919–1921)

Before there were logos or colors, there was a starch company.

The Chicago Bears weren't always the Chicago Bears. The franchise was founded in 1919 in Decatur, Illinois by A.E. Staley, a food starch businessman who wanted a company football team to promote his brand. He called them the Decatur Staleys.

In 1920, Staley hired a sharp young man named George Halas to run the team. Halas helped bring the Staleys into what was then called the American Professional Football Association the organization that would later become the NFL.

By 1921, the sport was outgrowing small-town Decatur. Staley handed the team over to Halas with a $5,000 bonus and one condition: keep the "Staleys" name for one more season. Halas agreed, moved the team to Chicago, and won the league championship that very year.

The "Staleys" name didn't last long after that.

Why "Bears"? The Name Has a Great Story

In 1922, George Halas did something clever. He needed a new name for his Chicago-based team, and he didn't have to look far for inspiration.

The team was playing their home games at Wrigley Field  home of the Chicago Cubs baseball team. Halas decided to pay homage to that connection, reasoning that since football players are bigger than baseball players, his team should be called the Bears (because bears are bigger than cubs). Simple, bold, and it stuck.

That same instinct for strong identity would define the Bears brand for the next century.

The Chicago Bears Colors: A Personal Choice by "Papa Bear" Halas

Here's a fact that surprises a lot of fans: the famous navy blue and burnt orange color combination wasn't the result of a branding committee or a design agency. It was a personal decision by George Halas himself.

Halas loved his alma mater, the University of Illinois, whose team colors were orange and blue. He adopted those colors for the Bears  but deepened them. The bright blue became a rich navy (Pantone 5395), and the orange was refined into a warm burnt orange (Pantone 1665).

The choice wasn't accidental. These are colors with meaning:

• Navy blue represents strength, stability, trust, and tradition  qualities that Halas wanted to define his franchise from day one.
• Burnt orange brings energy, aggression, and excitement  perfectly suited for the intensity of professional football.

Together, they create one of the most recognizable color combinations in all of American sports. Whether you spot them on a sweatshirt at the grocery store or on a helmet at Soldier Field, you know exactly who you're looking at.

The Chicago Bears Logo Through the Decades

The Early Years: No Official Logo (1920s–1930s)

In the early days of professional football, team logos weren't really a thing. Most teams simply used their uniforms and jersey lettering as their visual identity. The Staleys/Bears were no different.

During the 1920s and into the 1930s, the team didn't have a formal mascot logo. What mattered most was the game — and the Bears were very good at it. They dominated early NFL play under Halas's leadership.

The First Bear: Running with a Football (1940)

The first officially recognized Chicago Bears logo appeared around 1940, and it was exactly what you'd expect  a black bear running with a football. Classic, literal, and era-appropriate. The logo gave the team a visual mascot identity for the first time, even if it was fairly simple compared to what the Bears brand would eventually become.

The Bear Gets Bold: Navy Blue on a Football (1946)

By 1946, the logo was updated to feature a navy blue bear placed on top of a football. The design was more polished than its predecessor and helped establish the navy blue color as central to the team's visual identity. This era also coincided with some of the most celebrated football of the Bears' history, with legendary names beginning to define the franchise.

A New Logo Era: The Crawling Bear (1954)

The 1954 logo introduced a different visual  a black bear crawling on top of an orange football with a black outline and white seams. It was a more dynamic design, showing the bear in motion rather than just running upright. This logo captured something important: the Bears were a team that moved with purpose.

The Game-Changing Moment: The Wishbone "C" (1962)

Everything changed in 1962.

As NFL teams began adding logos to their helmets in the late 1950s and early 1960s, the Bears needed something that would look sharp and recognizable at high speed on a football field. Their answer was the Wishbone "C"  a sharp, curved letter C that stood for Chicago, rendered in orange with navy and white trim.

This wasn't just a logo update. It was a masterstroke of sports branding. Simple, bold, instantly readable from the stands, and deeply connected to the city's identity. The wishbone C was initially white with a black outline but evolved quickly.

The design choice carried unexpected historical weight  it closely resembled the "C" logo introduced by the University of Chicago Maroons back in 1898, giving the emblem deep roots in Chicago's sporting culture.

Refined and Perfected: The 1973–1982 Era

The Bears refined the wishbone C in 1973, landing on the version most fans today think of as "classic Bears": a bold orange wishbone C with white and navy blue trim. This was officially adopted as the primary logo to match the team's helmet design, and the slight orange adjustment in 1982 brought it even closer to the burnt orange we know today.

This is the logo that watched Walter Payton run, that was on the field during the legendary 1985 Super Bowl XX championship season, and that defined what a Bears fan looked like through the 1980s and 1990s.

The Bear Head Arrives: 1999

In 1999, the Bears introduced a growling bear head as an alternate logo — a front-facing navy and orange bear with its mouth wide open. Fierce, aggressive, and modern, the bear head became a fan favorite and started appearing on merchandise and team materials.

For over two decades, the bear head and the wishbone C existed side by side, each serving different purposes in the Bears' visual identity.

The 2023 Rebrand: The Bear Head Takes Over

In 2023, the Chicago Bears made a bold decision: they made the bear head their primary logo, replacing the wishbone C in that top-tier role.

The updated bear head features an aggressive, open-mouthed bear with bold navy and orange detailing  a design that communicates the team's intensity, power, and ambition heading into a new era of Bears football. It appears across digital media, merchandise, and official team materials.

The wishbone C hasn't disappeared  it still lives on helmets and classic fan apparel  but the organization made clear that the Bears are stepping into the future with an identity that roars.

What the Chicago Bears Colors Mean to Fans

Colors do something powerful. They build identity, trigger memory, and create belonging.

When a Bears fan puts on a navy and burnt orange sweatshirt, they're connecting to something bigger than any individual season. They're connecting to:

• George Halas walking into a Canton showroom in 1920 to help form what would become the NFL
• Sid Luckman and Bronko Nagurski in the early championship years
• Dick Butkus and Gale Sayers redefining what football could look like
• Walter Payton  Sweetness  becoming the greatest running back of his generation
• The 1985 Bears, arguably the most dominant team in NFL history
• Every brutal Soldier Field winter when fans showed up in navy and orange, refusing to leave

The navy and orange aren't just colors. They're a covenant between the city of Chicago and its football team.

The Official Color Codes (For the Detail-Oriented Fan)

If you've ever wondered exactly what shade those colors are, here's the official breakdown:

• Navy Blue — Pantone: PMS 5395 C | Hex: #0B162A
• Burnt Orange — Pantone: PMS 1665 C | Hex: #C83803
• White — used as accent/trim throughout the uniforms and logo

The OL London Black font is used for official jersey lettering, player names, and numbers  giving the Bears a bold, old-school typographic character that matches the toughness of the brand.

Bears Colors on Your Wardrobe: Why It Still Hits Different

There's a reason Chicago Bears sweatshirts never go out of style. Navy and burnt orange are one of the few sports color combinations that genuinely work as everyday fashion — not just at the stadium, but layered over a hoodie, paired with dark denim, or worn on a cold Chicago morning.

The Wishbone C is one of the most recognizable logos in American sports. When you wear it, people know exactly what you stand for — even people who don't follow football. That's the power of over 100 years of brand consistency.

And in 2023, with the bear head now leading the visual identity, there's fresh energy behind one of the oldest franchises in sports. A new chapter is being written, and the colors that George Halas chose from his love of the University of Illinois are still front and center.

Quick Timeline: Chicago Bears Logo & Color History at a Glance

Year	Milestone
1919	Team founded as Decatur Staleys by A.E. Staley
1920	Joins NFL (then APFA); George Halas takes over
1921	Team moves to Chicago, wins league championship
1922	Renamed the Chicago Bears; navy & orange adopted
1940	First official logo: black bear running with football
1946	Updated logo: navy bear on a football
1954	Crawling bear on orange football logo
1962	Iconic Wishbone "C" introduced on helmets
1973	Wishbone C refined; orange, white, and navy version becomes primary
1982	Orange shade slightly adjusted
1999	Growling bear head introduced as alternate logo
2023	Bear head becomes primary logo

Final Thoughts

The Chicago Bears logo and colors aren't just design choices  they're a living piece of American football history. From a starch company in Decatur to one of the NFL's most iconic franchises, every shade of navy and every flash of burnt orange carries a story.

The next time you see that wishbone C or that growling bear head, you'll know exactly where it came from, what it survived, and what it stands for.

And if you're looking to wear that history proudly whether for game day, a cold weekend, or just everyday Chicago pride  check out our Chicago Bears Sweatshirt Collection. Premium fabrics, bold fan-inspired designs, and the navy and orange that never goes out of style.