In 1971, Watergate was still just a hotel, NASA was preparing Apollo 15, and a small Oregon distributor named Blue Ribbon Sports quietly took its first step toward becoming Nike. That year, the company sold its first in house shoe: a black football boot simply called “the Nike”, priced at $16.95 and distinguished by a new, checkmark shaped stripe that few noticed at the time but which would outlive the boot and eventually define the brand.
From Blue Ribbon Sports to Nike
In the late 1960s and early 1970s, Phil Knight and Bill Bowerman were still operating under the name Blue Ribbon Sports (BRS), acting primarily as a U.S. distributor for Japanese Onitsuka Tiger running shoes. As contracts with Onitsuka began to wind down, Knight realised the company’s future could not depend on someone else’s product or identity. To grow, BRS needed its own shoe and its own mark.
In February 1971, Knight contracted a factory in Mexico to produce a black soccer/football cleat with a white sole, a model that needed to look clearly different from Onitsuka designs. That requirement to distinguish the shoe visually from competitors was what led him to seek a unique brand stripe.
Enter Carolyn Davidson and a $35 logo
To create this new mark, Knight turned to Carolyn Davidson, a graphic design student he had met while teaching accounting at Portland State University. Davidson, who at the time was looking to earn some extra money, was tasked with designing a stripe that could be placed on the side of the shoe and that would suggest motion and speed.
Working by overlaying tissue paper on drawings of the shoe, she developed several options and eventually presented Knight with five different designs, one of which was the now famous Swoosh. The mark hinted at a wing shape, subtly echoing Nike, the Greek goddess of victory, whose name the company would adopt as it transitioned from Blue Ribbon Sports.
Knight’s initial reaction is often quoted: he didn’t “love it,” but thought it would “grow” on him. Davidson invoiced $35 for her work, an amount that has since become a legend in logo history given how iconic the Swoosh has become.
“The Nike”: the first shoe to carry the Swoosh
The new mark’s first appearance was on that 1971 football boot, “the Nike”, sold for $16.95. At the time, the shoe itself did not stand out significantly in the market, but it carried the Swoosh as a visible differentiator, setting the foundation for Nike’s future visual identity.
Contrary to what some assume, the Swoosh did not debut on a running sneaker but on this football boot, marking Nike’s earliest foray into football and serving as the starting point of what would become a vast, multi sport product universe.
From side stripe to standalone icon
Over the following decades, the Swoosh evolved but remained recognisable. Early versions were often paired with the Nike wordmark, with refinements made in the late 1970s and 1980s to line weight, proportion and typography. The logo was frequently rendered in red and white, colours chosen to evoke passion, energy and victory, before the brand eventually moved to the sleeker black and white treatment widely seen today.
In 1995, Nike dropped the word “Nike” from many applications and allowed the Swoosh to stand alone as the primary brand symbol, a sign of how instantly recognisable it had become around the world. Today, what began as a quick student sketch is described by Nike itself as a global shorthand for speed, innovation and possibility.
Recognition for the designer
Although Carolyn Davidson’s original fee was only $35, Nike later recognised the importance of her contribution. In 1983, more than a decade after the logo’s creation, the company invited her to a ceremony and presented her with 500 shares of Nike stock and a Swoosh engraved gold ring as thanks for her role in shaping the brand’s identity.
Her story has since become a touchstone in design and branding circles, illustrating how a simple, well considered mark created under tight time and budget constraints can grow alongside a company to become one of the most powerful logos in the world.
