Words: Department of Nike Archives
In 1971, Watergate was just a hotel, NASA was preparing Apollo 15, and a small Oregon company had just sold its first pair of shoes.
The shoe — a football boot called “the Nike” — retailed for $16.95. Its defining feature was a checkmark-shaped stripe created by a Portland State University student for $35. Few noticed the shoe, but the mark would long outlast it.
At the time, Nike wasn’t yet the global sports brand it would become. Phil Knight and Bill Bowerman were still operating as Blue Ribbon Sports (BRS), a small distributor of Japanese running shoes. But contracts with their supplier were winding down, and Knight knew the company’s future depended on more than someone else’s product. To succeed, BRS needed a shoe of its own — and with it, an identity.
That February, Knight contracted a factory in Mexico to produce a black soccer cleat with a white sole. To distinguish it from Onitsuka Tiger models, he needed a brand mark. He turned to Carolyn Davidson, a design student he’d met while teaching accounting at Portland State.
Two years earlier, Davidson had been overheard in a hallway telling a classmate she couldn’t afford an oil painting course. Knight offered her $2 an hour to make charts and graphics for his side business. Over time, she created ads, brochures and catalogs. Now he asked her for something bigger: a stripe for the side of a shoe.
An original example of “the Nike” football boot, the first shoe to feature a Swoosh logo.
The group settled on Davidson’s curving checkmark. She thought it suggested motion. Knight was unconvinced. “Well, I don’t love it,” he told her, “but it will grow on me.”
Davidson sketched half a dozen options. In a Tigard, Oregon, office, Knight gathered two employees to review them, including Jeff Johnson, Nike’s first full-time hire. None made a strong impression. “It came down to a matter of which was the least awful,” Johnson recalled.
The group settled on Davidson’s curving checkmark. She thought it suggested motion. Knight was unconvinced. “Well, I don’t love it,” he told her, “but it will grow on me.”
The stripe — not yet called the Swoosh — was rushed to Mexico so production could begin. Davidson sent Knight an invoice for $35.
A perfect example of a one-off Swoosh — in his neverending quest to make shoes lighter, in 1975 Bill Bowerman directed the Swoosh on this prototype to be hand stippled with pen and ink.
Those first shoes carried the new mark into the world, but it looked different on nearly every model. On some, the line stretched wide. On others, it pinched tight. One runner joked that the curvier version resembled a “dead fish.” Factories stitched it however they could, and designers adjusted the angle depending on the shoe’s shape.
The stripe — not yet called the Swoosh — was rushed to Mexico so production could begin. Davidson sent Knight an invoice for $35.
Yet the stripe was already making appearances in the right places. At the 1972 Boston Marathon, two of the top American finishers crossed the line wearing Nike shoes marked with Davidson’s design — the first confirmed appearance of a Swoosh in a major race. The company highlighted the feat in its marketing materials the following year.
Apparel presented another challenge. On shirts and bags, the asymmetry of the mark seemed awkward. Johnson experimented by fanning multiple Swooshes into a circle, creating what became known as the “Sunburst” or “Pinwheel” logo. Borrowed in spirit from the 1972 Olympic design, it gave Nike something bold to put on warm-ups and team gear.
Jeff Johnson didn’t like the asymmetry of the Swoosh on apparel or bags, so he fanned them out to make a circle.
The “Pinwheel” logo first appeared on Nike products at the 1976 Olympic Track and Field Trials.
On shirts and bags, the asymmetry of the mark seemed awkward. Johnson experimented by fanning multiple Swooshes into a circle, creating what became known as the “Sunburst” or “Pinwheel” logo.
Geoff Hollister, Nike’s third employee — who would go on to pioneer the company’s early marketing efforts — pressed the Sunburst onto singlets and tracksuits. He also applied the Swoosh alone in unconventional ways. In 1974, Steve Prefontaine appeared at a meet in Tacoma, Washington, wearing a tracksuit with a lone, backwards Swoosh across the chest. That marked the first time the logo stood by itself on apparel.
In those first years, the design was far from consistent. Some called it the stripe. Others thought it looked strange, even unbalanced. But on marathon finish lines, in Olympic Trials and on the chest of America’s most famous runner, the mark was already doing its job: it was sticking.
What began as a reluctant choice — a student’s sketch rushed off to a factory — had become the emblem of Nike’s earliest wins. The Swoosh wasn’t yet the global icon it would become, but it was already proving it had staying power.
The Nike logo has evolved from Davidson’s original sketch, but the power of the Swoosh remains a constant.
In the decades since that first soccer cleat, the Swoosh has taken on countless forms. It was paired with bold Helvetica in the 1970s, broadcast to millions in Dennis Hopper’s 1993 football ads, stretched across Niketown Portland’s architecture, and splashed across caps at Wimbledon. It has been oversized, miniaturized, multiplied and, at times, overused. It has been guarded by Nike’s “brand police,” celebrated by athletes and parodied by critics.
Through all those shifts, one through line has remained: the Swoosh endures. What began as a quick sketch by a college student has become one of the most recognized symbols in the world. More than a stripe, it’s a global shorthand for speed, innovation and possibility.
The Swoosh logo on the roof of Nike’s NYHQ office.
“What we wanted it to stand for was speed, which it did and still does. But now it means much more than that. It symbolizes the best in sports. And it did grow on me!“
Phil Knight, Chairman Emeritus and co-founder