How to Draw UNC's Iconic Interlocking NC
Using simple shapes
An Iconic Logo
North Carolina’s iconic NC logo has adorned their uniforms since the spring of 1893 when the UNC baseball team were the first to wear the Spalding Navy blue Turtle Sweater with detachable turtleneck and new 'Varsity monogram.
In the first few years this logo sometimes became a caricature of itself on some sweaters. And it wasn’t always represented on some uniforms.
In 2015, after a couple decades of an asymmetrical logo and a few other graphic missteps, UNC and Nike developed a new graphics package for the University’s athletic teams including a refreshed NC logo.
The logo itself can easily be drawn using geometric figures. This presentation was done using Inkscape but you can use a graphics program you prefer.
Geometric Figures
The logo is made using 3 ovals, 2 circles (2X), and a couple of quadrilaterals. Unitless dimensions are given in the table below.
Table 1.
Here are the dimensions for the shapes you’ll use to make your interlocking NC logo.
Step 1.
Layout your shapes. The ovals are centered and the 3.125 wide rectangles are aligned to each end of the largest oval. The larger circle is then aligned to the other end of the rectangle and the smaller circle is centered within the larger circle. The square is rotated 45 degrees and aligned to the left side of smaller circle on the right. All shapes are centered vertically (top to bottom). The overall dimensions once you’ve placed all your shapes should be, 26.75 units wide and 12.25 units high.
Step 2.
Subtract the small circles from the large circles.
Step 3.
Find the intersection of the ‘rings’ from the previous step and the largest oval. These are the vertical strokes of the N.
Step 4.
Substract the smallest oval from the remaining larger oval.
Step 5.
Subtract the square from the oval ring.
Step 6.
Insert a freeform quadilateral.
Step 7.
Connect the corners of the quadrilateral to the corners of the arcs (top left, bottom right).
Step 8.
Combine the arcs and the diagonal stroke to form the letter N.
Step 9.
Combine the N and C to form the base logo.
Step 10.
Now let’s change the logo to Carolina Blue: Pantone 542C; rgb values: 123, 175, 212; hexadecimal: 7bafd4
Step 11.
Add an 1/8 units outline with curved corners.
Compare
In this larger example, the figure that’s just been drawn has been adjusted to 50% transparency and placed over the logo from the UNC athletics style guide (2015).
