The Last Crack of(at) Thunder

After a few weeks of feedback from the interwebs, I have taken the most popular of my ideas and the best suggestions and combined them into my final* version of my Thunder rebrand.

Logos

Let's start with a new main logo, the Thunder Ball.

As an homage to the city they used to be from and the team they used to be, the new main Thunder logo incorporates the old SuperSonics logo as well as the new preferred color scheme (gray and black with yellow and red/orange highlights) and the new thundercloud theme. And of course, it's a basketball because apparently all NBA teams have to have a basketball somewhere in one of their logos...

The red/orange behind the cityscape symbolizes an Oklahoma sunset in the distance as the clouds roll in over head.

The new typeface is derived from the Oklahoma state flag, which tries to make up for the loss of the state flag's blue in the color scheme. Many people hated the old Thunder typeface (I didn't but that's just me) but this new type helps to further the correlation between the team and Oklahoma.

The team has also been renamed the Oklahoma Thunder (this was a popular request). However, the cityscape is still of OKC, the town the 'Thunder Dome' still calls home, so there is a bit of compromise.

The secondary logo is the Bison Cloud logo I originally came up with but in the monotone gray/black color scheme and accent colors. I decided not to keep the bison brown so that it would not confuse the color scheme and so it would appear like an image in the clouds.

So maybe Rumble the Bison should change his coat.

Uniforms

'Fixing' the typeface and removing the word 'CITY' from the road uniform was pretty much the only change to these uniforms. the logo on the shorts remains the Bison Cloud logo because the Thunder Ball logo doesn't really work as anything other than a main chest logo (think current Golden State unis).

Court

The court hasn't changed much since my last incarnation. The logos have all been updated to their current appearance and the baseline wordmarks has changed to fit the new font and team name.

 And with all that, you have yourself a rebrand. Feel free to tell me what you think in the comments.

*for now. Let's be honest, I'll probably mess around with this again.

Royal Pain In My Ass

Last month, as you may recall, I did a rebrand for the Sacramento Kings.

My design was broken down into three different ideas all based off of this logo. The reason I needed three main ideas was because - at the time - no one knew where the Kings would end up, Sacramento, Anaheim or other.

No matter where they were located, though, I kept the name 'Kings'. Why wouldn't I? It's a good team name and they have been some incarnation of the Kings since 1972.

Well, according to this article, not only are the Kings closer to moving to Anaheim (probably) but the current Kings' habit of wearing 'Royals' throwbacks (pictured above) seem to be a foreshadowing of a name change.

So taking into account the new location (Anaheim), the new name (Royals) and the uniform set I already created and received a lot of positive feedback from, I decided to update my Kings rebrand for the Anaheim Royals.

Logos

While this was based off of this, the new logo set throws back to this Cincinnati Royals logo, so not much of a change.

Uniforms

Like I said, I got a lot of positive feedback about these unis so there's no point in changing anything that isn't necessary.

Court

Well, the Honda Center in Anaheim already has the nickname 'The Pond' for the Ducks, but I'm not quite sure how that'll jibe with the Royals ('the team across The Pond'?).

However the name works, I think the court looks great. Until my next rebrand, drop me an email if you have any questions or requests.

Pacing Myself

One of the funny things about living in Indiana for four years is that I've been to more Pacers games than Bulls games in the past half decade (and that's with one of the games Pacers vs. Bulls).

Now, not that there's anything wrong with the Pacers or Conseco Fieldhouse, but I barely care about the NBA and my built in favorite/hometown team, the Bulls, are way better than this incarnation of the Pacers.

There are a few things I have come to realize, though.

1. Always accept free skybox tickets. The beer is free.
2. The Pacers aren't as white as I thought they were (although they're pretty damn white).
3. The Pacers logo is great.

While I'm one to come in, shake up a team identity and look for improvements from the past, the Pacers have the perfect logo for their team sitting at mid court.

Now, since this isn't exactly a rebrand I guess this would be considered an update.

Uniforms

The Pacers should be commended, in an era when teams get rid of yellow for gold and turn blue into midnight navy, the Pacers have kept their colors reasonable. While I may have made the blue on the uniforms a little bit more blue than their current set, the current Pacer blue is still solid (but it has been getting a little too dark).

As for the design, like I said, I like to look into the past and the Pacers have a great uniform tradition. That being the case, my designs for the home and road are almost complete throwbacks and the alternate is a fauxback that can be worn at Conseco or at the majority of other NBA arenas.

Court

And while Conseco Fieldhouse is a beautiful facility and has a fine court, I thought I woud update the court to make it a bit more unique, like say adding the alternate's striping (which unfortunately goes down the players right side).

Well, that's it for my Pacer Update, I would like to thank the great people over at UniWatchBlog.com for once again highlighting my work (here is the link to my Q&A and Nets Rebrand). Please feel free to peruse my site and if you have any uniform or logo requests, feel free to email me here.

Next Year Will Be Better

I mean, it can't get worse.

Dodged a Bullet

The Wizards is messin' my shit up! (almost)

My penchant for impeccable timing combined with my severe laziness allowed me to avoid looking foolish.

this past weekend, I wrapped up a redesign of the Washington Wizards. I was set on releasing that post on Monday because of my JVBackups.com post that normally comes out on Tuesdays but I just didn't get around to doing it.

So when I awoke today to see this uni-news, I breathed a sigh of relief and got to work retooling my rebrand.

So as it turns out, I'm not the only one who thinks the Wizards need a rebrand. Since I found out the Wizards are probably changing their colors and 'considering' changing their name back to the Bullets, I have three redesign plans; Blackout, Wizards Are America And So Can You and Washington Reload.

So without further ado...

Blackout

You guessed it, we're taking the black out of the current color scheme.

Less black = better color scheme

As far as the unis go, I redesigned the entire front with their better font and I used the 'Moon-ball' to frame the numbers. I did, however keep the asymmetrical striping that only appears on the players' left side.

And we have to take the black out of the court too,

Wizards Are America And So Can You

What's more American than being from D.C.? Wearing red, white and blue.

According to the link at the top of the page, this appears to be what the Wizards main logo will be next year, so what will the D.C. secondary logo look like?

The WAAASCY uni set is the same as my previous redesign only in red, white and blue, just like the logos.

And I went America all over the Verizon Center's ass.

Washington Reload

What's more Washington D.C. than Wizards? Bullets!

OK, that may not be PC but come on, The Bullets sounds so much better than The Wizards. My logo is a bit of an update on the old Bullets logo and the secondary logo is brand new with a B that's also a W (just turn your head) and has at least three bullets built into the design.

The secondary logo led to the side striping on the Home and Road uniforms. The alternate uni is a throwback with my modern logo.

And as for the court, I couldn't decide, so I'll leave that to you...

Personally I love the hands coming onto the court...

Well, that's it for my Wizards/Bullets rebrand, more to come later in the week.