Sasquatch or mermaids? Spokane artist Charlie Palmer creates logo ideas for Seattle’s expansion NHL team

The NHL franchise coming to Seattle doesn’t have a name yet.

But Spokane artist Charlie Palmer is a step ahead of team planners, and he’s hoping they will give his work a look.

A professional painter whose work has appeared in various places for the Spokane Chiefs the last quarter century, Palmer has created a series of logos for the future Seattle professional hockey team.

“I wanted to throw my two cents in, kind of like I did with those original (program) covers for the Chiefs,” Palmer said, “so I rattled off a few and wrote up my ideas and talked to some hockey friends about suggestions for names. … It’s just another aspect of art as experience: You see all these things, and you want to try doing your version.”

Palmer mocked up at least a dozen potential logos, taking into account team names that have been suggested in various polls and media outlets.

Some are more serious, while others – like the one with a marijuana leaf on it – are more humorous in nature, befitting an artist whose roots are in comic paintings.

“My comic history, that’s a big part of it,” he said. “I’ve always liked The Hockey News issue where they show all the logos of the (American Hockey League) teams, and a lot of them are kind of cartoony. But every now and then you get some really nice design that’s really neat.”

Many of Palmer’s ideas feature a mascot holding a stick, be it an emerald, a sockeye or a mermaid. Others feature an erupting volcano, a skating sasquatch or a flying fish.

Palmer also has given careful thought to a color scheme. In keeping with the blue and green colors of the Mariners, Sounders and Seahawks, Palmer has settled on Copenhagen blue and a mint green seafoam in most of his drawings.

He would also add white, black and perhaps an accent of purple, he said.

“I had some fun with it, but I am serious about wishing they would just see some of my ideas,” Palmer said.

The Seattle franchise, the NHL’s 32nd, was officially awarded in December. It will begin play in the 2021-22 season. The Vegas Golden Knights, who joined the league in 2017-18, unveiled their name and logo in November 2016, about 10 months before they began play.

Since the mid-1990s, Palmer has painted a portrait of each of the Chiefs’ three 20-year-old players and presented them at the end of each season.

His landscape paintings are sold in various galleries across the Northwest.