Blue Devils are an athletic branch of the Duke University, which is in North Carolina. There are many sports teams competing on behalf of the University, although basketball and American football are amongst the most popular activities. Their history dates back to at least the 20s.
Who owns Duke Blue Devils? The Duke University owns and operates the organization. It’s not a public business.
History Logo
There’s no clear idea of when the Duke’s athletic organization came to be known as ‘Blue Devils’. It happened around the 1920s, and the name itself is honoring the famous French Alpine that bore the same name in the WW1. However, it’s also fitting because the Uni’s own traditional colors were blue and white for a long time.
1936 – 1948
The first logo was adopted in 1936, and it was an illustration of a classic theatric Devil – a man wearing thin, twisted moustache and a hood adorned with two small horns. He was looking scornfully towards the onlooker in this picture and had the word ‘Duke’ inscribed over his shoulder.
The colors were naturally blue and white in this emblem.
1948 – 1955
The 1948 design was a bit more grotesque: it featured a slim, jester-like Devil as shown in early Disney animations. There was a thin, long face, a long nose, two protruding horns, a goatee, a trident in his arms and a lot more details. Honoring the University, there was a big white ‘D’ on his chest and the word ‘Duke’ beneath his feet.
1955 – 1966
Many details of the previous design stayed into the 1955. However, they made the Devil more beefy, muscular and friendly, while also adding flames around his legs. Apart from that, nothing conceptually was altered. However, the color blue was supplanted by black in this variation.
1966 – 1971
In 1966, they started using the blue again and introduced a new design: the face of the Devil. It was scarce on features and was rather simple, although also different from the previous attempts and more like a normal human face, except with two curved horns and deformed ears.
1971 – 1978
The 70s emblem is surprisingly rich with nuance and effort. They used many concepts from the 1948 logo, but made this one more serious, beefy and fleshed-out. It was more like a medieval engraving than a grotesque cartoon. It wasn’t very distinctive from afar, so then scrapped it soon.
1978 – today
The later emblem is the simplest of them all: it’s just a blue capital ‘D’ depicted in a peculiar geometric style. The blank space in the middle had a form of a tall crystal that stretched from the very top to the very bottom, slicing the letter in two. And the letter itself was wide, sharp and square.
Helmet History
The football Blue Devils team has usually been wearing one of two helmet designs throughout the years. It’s either completely blue, save for a single white stripe through the middle, or vice versa. The only thing that changed frequently was the emblem they put on the side of the helmet.
Uniform History
The uniforms slightly differ between the basketball and football teams, not to mention all the rest. However, they’ve generally used either blue clothes with white stripes or white clothes with blue stripes. Occasional designs also included black variations with blue details, and other color schemes.
Duke Blue Devils Colors
BLUE (DUKE ATHLETICS)
PANTONE: PMS 287 C
HEX COLOR: #003087;
RGB: (0, 48, 135)
CMYK: (100, 75, 2, 18)
WHITE
HEX COLOR: #FFFFFF;
RGB: (255, 255, 255)
CMYK: (0, 0, 0, 0)
