The farcical rumor that Green Bay Packers’ timeless “G” logo stands for “Greatness” has long been debunked. But did the G stand for more than just “Green Bay” to Vince Lombardi?
Some think so. Josh Gordon, son of John Gordon, the man who designed the logo in 1961, said his father, who died in 2023, believed it was a symbol for Lombardi’s desire to dominate the NFL. His Dad’s reasoning largely was based on the timing. (Photo above shows Gordon in the Packers Hall of Fame in 2021. Courtesy of Josh Gordon.)
The story has been told many times: The Packers lost to the Eagles 17-13 in the 1960 NFL Championship game, a contest Lombardi felt his team should have won. Afterward, Lombardi famously told his team that he never intended to lose another playoff game. The pledge came true.
It was the following year leading up to the season when Lombardi told equipment manager Gerald “Dad” Brashier, to come up with a logo for the helmets, specifically saying he wanted a football-shaped “G.” Gordon was an assistant to Brashier and also an arts student at St. Norbert College, so he was handed the task. He took the logo concept as a symbol.
“My dad, from the beginning, got the impression that the football shape represented the National Football League, and the ‘G’ represented the Green Bay Packers,” Josh said when I caught up with him in Green Bay this week. “And that represented Lombardi’s intention to dominate any NFL team the Packers faced ever since the Packers lost that first championship game. It was a symbol. It wasn’t just a cool logo – it was to dominate the game.”
Gordon got the Packers job largely because his father knew Braisher professionally: “Dad said, “I got the job and I kept it for 10 years.”’
That he was an artist was mere coincidence, but thanks to him, the logo was born. It was altered in 1970 to look more like an oval, and that slight revision has stuck.
“My dad remembered grabbing a pencil and starting to draw it out,” Josh said. “My dad just does everything on paper. My dad realized, ‘This is going to be a project,’ and he went home to his parents’ house. And he finished it at 2 or 3 in the morning.”
As Gordon was drawing it, he realized the green outline created a negative shape, so he wondered if that would be a hindrance when Lombardi saw it.
“He said, ‘I don’t know what Dad is going to say about that,’” Josh said. But Bashier took it to Lombardi the next day.
“Lombardi accepted it right away,” Josh said.
He recalls his father saying, “‘Dad returned to the locker room and told me Lombardi had approved my drawing,’”
Brashier had a local company turn the logo into decals.
“They arrived a few days later,” Josh said. “When they arrived, my dad and Dad Brashier put them on by hand.”
Asked if his dad got paid for designing the logo, Josh said, “He never talked about that.”
Josh Gordon
Josh Gordon
Gordon went on to become an accomplished artist, and would do custom work for players and their wives while he was employed by the Packers. He remained prolific, creating many works in multiple styles. He taught for years and went on to start his own Gordon School of Art. In his program, he had a teaching style inspired by Lombardi’s coaching style.
“The first thing they had to learn was to hold the pencil properly,” Josh said. (Yeah, that sounds Lombardi-esque.)
Most importantly, Gordon kept moving forward in life. Josh, now a writer outside of his day job as a FedEx driver, remembers an active childhood that didn’t waver into his adulthood.
“There was always something going on,” he said. “There was just a lot of life and energy every day.”