Tampereen Tappara is a Finnish professional ice hockey club based in Tampere, competing in Liiga. The club was founded in 1955 when the ice hockey department of Tammerfors Bollklubb (TBK) established Tappara as its new representative team, inheriting TBK’s place in the top league and its colors.[1][2] The name “Tappara” is Finnish for “battle axe.”
Design and History
The Tappara logo was designed in 1955 by Kimmo Kaivanto, a young artist and advertising professional who was 23 years old at the time.[3][4] Kaivanto was approached by Pentti Mäkisalo, who was involved with the newly formed club, and was asked to create an emblem for no pay.[4] He was given TBK’s familiar colors and asked to design a mark.[3]
Kaivanto studied the tappara weapon closely and researched ice hockey as a sport, which he understood as hard, aggressive and fast. He also wanted to honor TBK’s colors and history. He found most sports club marks cluttered and graphically unclear, while medieval color schemes and heraldry appealed to him. He produced dozens of versions, but only one was ever shown to the club, offered in the summer of 1955.[4]
The current logo has been in continuous use since 1955, making Tappara the only club in Liiga that has never changed its logo.[2] In May 2025, ahead of the club’s 70th anniversary season, Tappara introduced three seasonal badges to accompany the iconic axe logo. These badges add the years 1955–2025 above the axe, but the primary logo itself was not replaced.[2]
Meaning and Symbolism
Kaivanto’s design places an orange battle axe at the center, which he intended to represent Tappara-style ice hockey: attack, power and aggression. The dark blue shield behind the axe symbolized the importance of defense, also part of the sport. The four small white circles on the shield represent hockey pucks, marking the emblem as belonging to an ice hockey club.[4]
Kaivanto saw the mark as a reference to history, drawing a parallel from the Middle Ages to the present, with colors functioning as signals. He believed the strict heraldic look would stand the test of time.[4]
Typography and Design
Kaivanto deliberately favored heraldic clarity and simplicity over the cluttered sports marks common at the time. His design was intended to be recognizable from a distance, following the heraldic principle that a mark should be identifiable from about 200 meters away.[4] The club’s official colors are blue, orange and white.[1]
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