Mercury ignites a vibrant future with a groundbreaking visual overhaul. New logos and uniforms blend franchise history with a bold, modern edge.
The Phoenix Mercury stepped into a new era Monday, unveiling the first full-scale rebrand in franchise history with a suite of modernized logos and uniforms designed to honor the organization’s past while signaling its future.
The debut marked a landmark moment for one of the WNBA’s original clubs. The updated branding — unveiled during a private event in Phoenix on Friday — includes two new uniform sets releasing Tuesday and a complete overhaul of the team’s visual identity. It is the first time since the Mercury’s inaugural season in 1997 that the franchise has reimagined its look this extensively.
Vince Kozar, the team’s president, said the redesign stemmed from a realization that the Mercury’s original identity, while iconic, had become limiting. He spoke to ESPN about how the organization approached the challenge of refreshing a 1990s-era logo without abandoning the heritage attached to it.
Kozar said the team wanted “to modernize it instead of just come off the top rope out of left field with something different.”
In reevaluating their primary visuals, Kozar explained that Phoenix had only two usable logos and a script wordmark — a narrow toolkit that created complications with both branding and merchandise. The new system changes that dramatically. The rebrand introduces 14 logos, marks and wordmarks, alongside a custom-created font for letters and numbers, giving the franchise a versatile design language for the first time.
Kozar also noted that the Mercury studied how the New York Liberty and Seattle Storm approached their own recent rebrands, using those as inspiration for how to merge tradition with contemporary style.
One of the most noticeable updates is the heavier emphasis on purple, long considered the Mercury’s signature color. The revamped “M” logo — now elevated above the planet Mercury rather than tucked beneath it — serves as the new primary mark. Kozar described it as a sharper, more forward-looking evolution of the team’s original emblem.
He said the goal was for longtime fans to see familiar elements in the new version, explaining that “you should be able to recognize us in the new one.”
The redesign is filled with nods to the franchise’s roots. Both the primary and global logos feature an “M” tilted at a 19.97-degree angle, a tribute to the Mercury’s inaugural season. The global logo also contains eight lines, referencing the rings from the original design and honoring Phoenix as one of the WNBA’s eight founding teams. Even the updated wordmarks sit on an 8-degree horizon line to reinforce that history.
Phoenix also kept the “PHX” logo introduced by Nike in 2021, recognizing its popularity among players and fans. Kozar said it may be the first WNBA logo to explicitly honor a fan base — in this case, the Mercury’s well-known “X Factor.”
New marks also incorporate the outline of Arizona, reflecting the organization’s desire to embrace its statewide identity. Another new logo features the word “Merc,” a nod to how supporters and employees have casually referenced the team for nearly 30 years.
Kozar said the rebrand was the result of several converging factors, including the team’s long-planned desire to refresh its identity around its 25th season before the pandemic delayed those efforts. The organization ultimately targeted the 30th anniversary instead, a timeline that he said brought added meaning — even if arriving on the heels of a WNBA Finals appearance was an unexpected bonus.
He described the two-and-a-half-year process as extensive, involving an outside agency that helped the franchise refine its message and research fan perceptions before the final design work shifted fully in-house. For six months, Phoenix’s designers cycled through “dozens and dozens” of iterations before landing on the final package.
The result is a modern identity that bridges eras — one rooted in the franchise’s beginnings, shaped by the league’s growth, and built to carry the Mercury into their next chapter.