Starbird (symbol)

"There's a lot of meaning to the symbol. According to some, the starbird can never die&mdash;whenever it seems to be gone, it's actually renewing itself in the heart of a nova."

- From Sabine Wren's personal journal

The starbird was a stylized depiction of a legendary bird rising up in the air, with its wings spread and its head turned to the right. The Mandalorian weapons expert and graffiti artist Sabine Wren used that symbol as her personal signature.

History
The design was based on the starbird of ancient legend. The legend stated that a starbird could never die and that if it seemed to be gone, it was actually renewing itself in the heart of a nova.

At some point, the symbol was adopted by Sabine Wren, a Mandalorian warrior who put her own artistic spin on the design, drawing inspiration from Janyor's protest paintings on Bith. During her time with the rebels from the planet Lothal, led by former Jedi padawan Kanan Jarrus, she painted the symbol wherever the small band would strike. She also painted it on her breastplate. Eventually, it became her trademark.

One such victory occurred on Lothal, when Wren sabotaged one of the planet's key air fields. She used the symbol again when she blew away a good part of the Lawbringer during the concurring skirmish. Again, on the rebels' mission to steal Imperial weapons, she painted her trademark on crates in a hangar bay on Garel, killing or distracting the pursuing stormtroopers as to allowing the Ghost, flown by rebel captain Hera Syndulla, to make its escape. Wren's sign, however, was not made using ordinary paint, but, instead, was a concoction of her own making that resulted in an explosion. She utilized her explosive symbol again at the Spire on Stygeon Prime.

She also enjoyed vandalizing Imperial propaganda posters with the starbird symbol.

Starbird was also one of many fake identities used by the Spectres to identify the Ghost.

By the third year before the Battle of Yavin, the use of Wren's starbird had spread among the members of the larger rebellion. Notably, the rebel ship Evac One bore that symbol on its hull.

The Lothal resistance used the starbird symbol to mark an escape route through the sewers of the town of Jhothal, which was used by the Spectres on their mission to Lothal in 1 BBY. Sabine, recognizing her symbol, deduced that it had to have been left by the Lothalian rebels as she would not have had the opportunity to leave her signature there.

Around the time of the Battle of Scarif, the Rebel pilot Farns Monsbee had a modified version of Wren's Phoenix crest on his flight helmet.

Behind the scenes
"I'm probably most proud of the Rebels' phoenix logo. I made it one day on a whim while working on really early versions of the Ghost ship, and it's remained unchanged all the way through marketing. It's meant to hint at the Rebel Alliance symbol that will appear in the later films."

- Chris Glenn, Star Wars Insider 154

The Star Wars Rebels phoenix logo was designed by Lucasfilm concept artist Chris Glenn. There has been no in-universe connection established between it and the Rebel Alliance starbird, as of yet.