The Nashville Sounds are a Triple-A Minor League Baseball team and the top affiliate of the Milwaukee Brewers, playing at First Horizon Park in Nashville, Tennessee. The club’s visual identity has undergone several significant transformations since its founding in 1978, with the most recent major overhaul arriving in November 2018.
Design and History
The Sounds’ current primary logo, introduced in November 2018 as part of the “Sounds Remastered” rebrand, is a circular roundel designed to resemble a record album. The mark features double red circles with navy blue “Nashville” and “Sounds” lettering composed in a custom font called “NASH” around the outer circle. The design incorporates twin stripes pulled from the Tennessee state flag, adopted in 1905. The new identity was brought to life by RARE Design, a Hattiesburg, Mississippi-based branding company that has also worked on rebrands for the NBA’s Atlanta Hawks, Charlotte Hornets, Minnesota Timberwolves and Sacramento Kings. The team’s director of marketing, Alex Wassel, described it as “a simplified logo, our primary,” noting that “the stripes on the logo, those are pulled from the Tennessee state flag.” [1] [2]
The 2018 rebrand coincided with the team’s switch in Major League affiliation from the Oakland Athletics to the Texas Rangers. The new primary logo combined elements from the Tennessee state flag, the Sounds’ original uniform palette, and the fans and community who shape Nashville, according to the team’s announcement. The new colors were similar to the Rangers’ red, white and navy blue. The logo also retained the guitar pick shape as a tie-in with Nashville’s rich music tradition. [3]
Prior to the 2018 rebrand, the Sounds had used a logo system designed by San Diego-based Brandiose, unveiled in October 2014 ahead of the team’s move to First Tennessee Park (then called First Tennessee Park). The centerpiece of that identity was a guitar pick “N” logo stylized from an f-hole on a guitar, paying tribute to Nashville as “Music City.” The original October 2014 unveiling featured a color scheme of Broadway Burnt Orange, Sunburst Tan, Neon Orange and Cash Black, with the Sounds noted as the first professional sports team to use Neon Orange in its color scheme. However, after fan disapproval, the team revised the colors in January 2015, returning to the traditional red and black scheme the team had worn for the previous 16 years while adding a new platinum silver accent color, a reference to platinum records associated with the music industry. [4] [5]
The Brandiose-designed set also included a guitar logo referencing the team’s iconic guitar-shaped scoreboard at Greer Stadium, which was being replicated at the new ballpark, and a third logo overlaying the letters “MC” (for “Music City”) above the same guitar pick. Brandiose co-founder Jason Klein described the work as “something that feels classic and Major League, yet still has its own unique story to tell.” [6]
Meaning and Symbolism
The 2018 roundel’s record album motif directly ties the logo to Nashville’s music industry heritage, while the twin stripes pulled from the Tennessee state flag connect the mark to state pride. The team’s official blog explained that the colors introduced in 2018 drew from three paths: throwback logos that fans loved, given a modern take introducing navy as the blue variant, and state pride colors pulled from the Tennessee State Flag, as seen in the Tri-Star Plate icon on alternate hats. [7]
The earlier 2015 guitar pick “N” logo embedded an F-hole guitar opening as the cross in the “N,” a direct reference to the acoustic guitar sound hole found in many instruments. Brandiose’s Jason Klein noted that the goal was to create “an icon for the city as much as it was an icon for the Sounds,” adding that “Nashville is the only entertainment city in America that proudly claims itself as Music City.” [6] [5]
Typography and Design
The 2018 primary logo uses a custom font called “NASH” for the “Nashville” and “Sounds” lettering arranged around the outer circle of the roundel. The center of the mark features a stylized baseball with a red outline and a custom blue letter “N” placed within it. [1]
The Sounds have continued to introduce specialty marks since the 2018 rebrand. In April 2024, the team introduced a new “Brewskis” cap as a tribute to their parent club, the Milwaukee Brewers, featuring a powder blue color way that references the iconic uniforms the Brewers wore from 1970 to 1984. [8]
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