George Afedzi Hughes, a Ghanaian artist and head of the painting department at the University at Buffalo, has created a new crest for the Buffalo Sabres as part of the team’s Black History Celebration. The design is part of the third installment in the Community Artist Series, a collaboration with the Buffalo AKG Art Museum.
Unlike previous editions that used the Sabres’ primary crest, Hughes’ work is based on the “goathead” throwback logo. His design will be featured on practice jerseys displayed at KeyBank Center and auctioned during the Sabres’ Black History Celebration game against Los Angeles on January 29. Proceeds from this auction will support the Buffalo Center for Arts and Technology, which provides free adult workforce training and youth afterschool programs in Buffalo.
Hughes described his artistic approach as beginning with chaos before bringing structure to his works. “I would say figurative abstraction,” Hughes said of his style. “There is always some hint at a particular subject or content, but I give it some kind of a poetic twist.”
For this project, Hughes incorporated Adinkra symbols from Ghana throughout his hand-painted logo design. These include interlocked diamonds representing justice and law; a black diamond symbolizing beauty and strength; a comb denoting grooming; and another diamond-shaped pattern for strategic work. The hexagon encasing the logo stands for interconnectedness, balance, and harmony—its gold color referencing Africa’s natural resources.
The background features red, black, and green Pan-African flag colors. Gray arrows atop the buffalo’s head are divided but oriented in one direction. Explaining this detail, Hughes said: “Even though the gray arrow is fractured, the peaks of the diamonds are pointing toward one another, showing that there’s still continuity through blood, through lineage, through heritage.”
Hughes hopes viewers will be inspired to learn about African heritage through these visual elements layered onto an established sports emblem. “I want the work to impact [people] aesthetically, for them to see some sort of artistry in the design, even though the predominant structure of it is the same as the logo,” he said. “I want the designs on top of the Sabres logo to bring them some kind of a hint of African heritage.”
