OKC NBA to announce nickname, logo, colors September 3

[AAO]

Right. They would be my favorite team if he even had the chance to SEE my logo, and then choose it. Hardly--I'd just be better off financially and have a hell of a lot more exposure.

The whole thing is just screwed up--I think Clay Bennett is the douchest of all douche bags, per his lying when purchasing the team, then going against the good faith of keeping the team in Seattle. FYI, he's number 17 in AOL's top hated sports figures.

Wait til it happens to one of YOUR favorite teams. Then we'll see whose side your on. Don't get me wrong, I'm not a Sonics fan, but it's still just ridiculous. Clay Bennett even mumbled something about character during the unveiling. Character. Who is this lying heartless bastard teaching about character?

Then to top it off, they piece together some clip art for the logo. I feel like a broken record. I'm done.

Just say NO to bad design!

[CubsFanBudMan]

The person whose comments you're defending went way beyond that.

[goforbroke]

I decided to take my own advise and come up with this concept. Its also posted in the concepts forum, wasn't sure where it should really go.

One technical flaw I noticed when making this concept is the logo NEEDS to always be stroked in white when put on any color besides white. If u put it on blue, u lose one slash, if you put it on red, u lose the other, if you but it on navy, u lose the whole shape. To me, that is the definition of poor and amateur logo design. It not only sucks aesthetically, but from a technical standpoint its not well thought out at all.

PS- i don't have a very extensive font library, so please excuse the number and name plate fonts

[AAO]

Just....why? It looks like crap. Not the jersey design, the jersey design is decent.

But the colors, the :censored:ty logos & wordmarks do not do justice.

[goforbroke]

Just....why? It looks like crap. Not the jersey design, the jersey design is decent.

But the colors, the :censored:ty logos & wordmarks do not do justice.

I hear ya man. I'm just using what they gave me to work with, trying to get an idea of the direction they might go in. Its not so much my concept in as much as it is my guess as to what they will do. Or should do at least now that they are stuck with these colors and logos to try and make the best of it if possible

[boardname]

I decided to take my own advise and come up with this concept. Its also posted in the concepts forum, wasn't sure where it should really go.

One technical flaw I noticed when making this concept is the logo NEEDS to always be stroked in white when put on any color besides white. If u put it on blue, u lose one slash, if you put it on red, u lose the other, if you but it on navy, u lose the whole shape. To me, that is the definition of poor and amateur logo design. It not only sucks aesthetically, but from a technical standpoint its not well thought out at all.

PS- i don't have a very extensive font library, so please excuse the number and name plate fonts

This illustrates the ONLY nice thing I can say about this crappy logo: it'd work pretty well as a secondary mark.

[Still MIGHTY]

That jersey almost looks like the Jazz (the wordmark and color specifically) minus the orange

Those Doritos comparisons are just priceless though

[Hoopskid]

One thing I hate about the primary alternate (WTF is that anyway) is that it says OKLAHOMA CITY THUNDER OKC, why is okc on the primary? Look at the suns, decent primary, but it doesn't say PHOENIX SUNS PHX. Their secondary does, and what a secondary it is. Anyway, hopefully when they unveil jerseys we'll see more and better logos.

[Brian in Boston]

Right. They would be my favorite team if he even had the chance to SEE my logo, and then choose it. Hardly--I'd just be better off financially and have a hell of a lot more exposure.

I'll repeat... your ire is misplaced.

First, you should be focusing some of your aggravation on the firm that told you they could get your concept - the work of a student with no real-world experience designing for major professional sports clients - in front of just such a client. Given the realities of branding for a major professional sports team, the chances of said firm being able to get your unsolicited work in front of an NBA team for actual consideration were the proverbial "slim and none". That is the reality of the industry.

Further, you need to take a long, hard look at yourself, as well. The fact that you bought into the notion that your concept - again, the unsolicited work of a student with no prior experience working with/for major professional sports clients - would be seen by a "Big Four" sports franchise, let alone seriously considered by them, is the height of naivete. To say nothing of the fact that your bison-themed Oklahoma City Thunder concept was not one of your stronger pieces of work.

Bottom line? You need to come to grips with the reality of how the sports branding field actually operates.

[DG_ThenNowForever]

If you look at the situation rationally, you cannot blame Clay Bennett for moving the team. It was going to happen one way or another if the situation remained the same, and the local and state politicians sealed the team's fate. End of story.

True.

But you can blame Bennett for lying about it. An honest owner might have been able to do something about the local and state politicians that the Sonics' dishonest new owner didn't try.

And, just to stay on-topic, the logos uniformly suck.

These decisions don't exist in a vacuum. The Seattle region had not only renovated Key Arena in 1996, but also ponied up big money for football and baseball stadiums. There wasn't anything left for basketball and nor should there have been. It is not the responsibility of city leaders to build money-making apparatuses for private industry.

The very notion that cities and states should pay for professional stadiums is deeply flawed. Yes, cities sometimes see benefits in the form of sales tax and tourist dollars, but it takes a long, long time to recoup those benefits. And by the time cities start actually earning money on stadium investments, owners are often complaining about how out-of-date the stadiums are, and that they need to be repaired or replaced. Sound familiar?

Bennett bought the team with the intention of either getting a gift from the city, or moving it. I'll try to be as veiled about this as possible, but I have seen the proposed Bennett arena finance plan, delivered by someone very close to Bennett for an audience that had both influence and a vested interest building an arena. His plan was an obvious joke and either 1.) prepared by someone very, very stupid, or 2.) prepared by someone half-assing it for political reasons. It's pretty obvious, at this point, what happened there.

[goforbroke]

Again, i apologize for posting concepts here, but I think with this topic in warrants it because I want to say something else about the design of the logo.

It is very bottom-heavy. as you can see, the logo badge is centered in the center circle, but appears to be falling off the bottom. If a logo is going to be anything-heavy it should be top-heavy. If I positioned the logo so the basketball IS the center circle (extending the circle of course) then i would have to move the logo even further south. Now, with the basketball NOT used as the center circle, the whole thing kind of looks off i admit.

Also, the slashes make it seem even more bottom-heavy, and make it a very misleadingly wide logo as well. Again, bad name, colors, etc aside. The logistics of this logo are all half-a$$ed. A pro design company would have taken all of this into account, and think about HOW and WHERE the logo is going to be used

[Roger Clemente]

Still better than Tom O'Grady.

Can't figure why the OKC in the logo is skewed as such an extreme angle...

[AAO]

Ok.

A) The fact that they never saw nor used my logo is about 1% of my general frustration, I am very well aware it was a long shot. 99% of my frustration is coming from the fact that first, they stole the team from Seattle. Then, they drop this lame-ass logo on us. Thus making themselves look like a half assed organization, whom in point-in-case, are just plain ignorant. Aesthetically, and ignorant to the NBA's 'NBA Cares' theme.

B. For what it's worth, I like the court design, broke.

[Shmee]

People who buy teams for hundreds of millions of dollars, with the intent of pouring millions more into them, may do with them what they please. It's a harsh reality, I know, but it's one you're going to have to learn to deal with. And to be honest, it's going to happen more frequently as population trends continue as they have been. Cities in the northeast and upper midwest than continue to hemorrhage population to the southeast and southwest are going to see more teams move.

[Braden]

It's pretty obvious that they were looking for a generic look for the team.

Considering that, the Thunder logo is successful. I may not like it, but it's successful.

I do, however, like the Wordmarks and the use of the Light Blue & Orange, so I'm looking forward to the jerseys.

[Neon_Matrix]

NEVER MIND

[TruColor]

Just to clarify...the "Orange" in the Thunder's color scheme is - for all intents and purposes - a Red. The team calls it Red ("not too Red, not too Orange"...and the official name is "Oklahoma City Thunder Red"), but the issue here is that Illustrator tends to skew that particular Pantone color towards Orange instead of its actual shade which is more of a Red:

For those who might be confused, AI translates Pantone information to RGB by way of CIE-L*ab values. That way, there can be a consistency of sorts when the user sets his or her working color space. The RGB values are calculated accordingly.

Does any of that make sense? Me neither. My wife and I just got home after driving 14 hours straight from the Twin Cities to Denver...I be sleepy.

[DarkJourney]

I shall curse the Oklahoma City Thunder to 50 consecutive non playoff seasons. There. Done.

[fishheatcats]

Here's the jerseys they need to wear for this awful logo. Since it is generic and uninspired, the uniforms should be as well. Since they obviously didn't spend any time or money on the logo, why spend any on uniforms? No names on the back either, that would require an extra $50 dollars and 20 minutes worth of effort, which apparently is too much for Clay Bennett and Company. Get on the phone with Eastbay and order up some stuff OKC!

[JH42XCC]

Pardon me, Oklahoma City Thunder, but (insert name) called. They said that they want their logo back.