New Illinois Basketball Court

[illini1]

I watching Illinois' Night of Legends on TV and Illinois has a new floor. I'll try and find some pictures. They're using the light and dark wood for the land and inside the three point line like a lot of teams have been going to lately. Another thing I realized while watching the game is that all the courts in the NCAA this year are going to look horrible because the moved the men's three point line back, but the women's line stayed the same, so it looks pretty cluttered because the men's line isn't much farther back.

[Billy B]

The court looks so boring now. They also have the block I with Illinois script on the middle of the court now. I like the new midcourt, but I wish they would have kept the lane colored.

[STL FANATIC]

Agreed about the lane. But I do like the I-ILLINOIS logo at midcourt. I'd have preferred just the I though.

[pcgd]

http://fightingillini.cstv.com/view.gal?id=34400

That is the gallery from the game. The first couple show center court, and then around 38 you can see the lanes a bit. After that you can see the crappy banners they hung up honoring the players.

What an opportunity missed! They put all the players in the jerseys from 2005 instead of putting them all the jerseys of their own eras. That would have been soooo much cooler. It wouldn't have been that hard to research I'm sure. Cool idea, bad execution...unfortunately that's how alot of stuff at illinois goes graphically. Not sure if its a lack of good design firms in town or what. They have great ideas, but somehow it gets botched a bit. Take a look at the murals around Memorial Stadium. They look decent but they could have been so much better. Not so bad that its ugly, just it never reaches its potential.

[STL FANATIC]

Booo for dissing on the the DIA's design, Pat! (jk...I know where you're coming from.)

The deal is that most everything is done in house, and when quality isn't up to par it's because there's just too much to do. I was one of two design students hired last year to help out, and that number is up to four now, but there's still a ton to do. In time the hope (from what I understand) is to have one or two graduate assistants doing design so that you're up to 4-5 full time designers instead of 2 or 3 plus students.

I can promise you that all the designers are extremely talented though and I think that's going to start to show.

Now the murals around Memorial Stadium are a different story. Our dept. dug up all of the photos (I actually had a lot of fun going through files that probably hadn't been touched in years and looking at so many great moments), and put together the occasional "sketch", but by and large that project was handled by an outside firm because it was simply to big on top of the other things we had to do.

That said, I think those murals look pretty sharp (haven't seen them all though), and I've always been a fan of streamlining retired jerseys instead of mixing up with different looks from different years. I like the thought of different eras, but I just think it looks better streamlined.

In any case, I'm sure it was a time issue (although I had nothing to do with that project).

[pcgd]

Booo for dissing on the the DIA's design, Pat! (jk...I know where you're coming from.)

The deal is that most everything is done in house, and when quality isn't up to par it's because there's just too much to do. I was one of two design students hired last year to help out, and that number is up to four now, but there's still a ton to do. In time the hope (from what I understand) is to have one or two graduate assistants doing design so that you're up to 4-5 full time designers instead of 2 or 3 plus students.

I can promise you that all the designers are extremely talented though and I think that's going to start to show.

Now the murals around Memorial Stadium are a different story. Our dept. dug up all of the photos (I actually had a lot of fun going through files that probably hadn't been touched in years and looking at so many great moments), and put together the occasional "sketch", but by and large that project was handled by an outside firm because it was simply to big on top of the other things we had to do.

That said, I think those murals look pretty sharp (haven't seen them all though), and I've always been a fan of streamlining retired jerseys instead of mixing up with different looks from different years. I like the thought of different eras, but I just think it looks better streamlined.

In any case, I'm sure it was a time issue (although I had nothing to do with that project).

Oh jeez...I rarely diss anything on here and the one time I do someone on here was involved.

I know how it all works. I worked in an internal design department at a college too. I figured that stuff was done by an outside firm. Alot of times there isn't much time, and the higher ups don't care as much as they should. They want it done, not necessarily done right.

Like I said, lots of good ideas and cool things. Its awesome they are honoring all the players, and I like doing it on the jerseys. Personally I'd like a history lesson on the jerseys as well, but thats more opinion than anything else.

The murals in memorial stadium, again, are nice. I just think some of them could have been much better. Mainly the paintings. The actual vinyl ones are pretty sharp from what I saw. Of course most of what I saw was on 'The Journey'

And its not just the graphics that always seem to slightly miss the mark. Although all the memorial stadium renovations seem really nice, it just seems to me with a bit more effort they (the renovations) could have been incredible. Again, I shouldn't judge until I have visited so I'll stop.

Hopefully I didn't trip from backpedaling too fast...

Man, my job gets bashed around here on a daily basis and then I turn around and do the same thing...

[STL FANATIC]

No worries, Pat, I was just kidding. All your points are valid, and like I said, I wasn't really involved first-hand with any of the ones you mentioned anyways.

I definitely agree on the renovations on the whole. It's beautifully done, but they missed little opportunities to re-embrace some of the history and instead took the easy way out. Or they could have renovated IMPE (now ARC) in conjunction with MS, but instead did it separately and while both look nice they don't look integrated. There's a big back window in ARC that was supposed to look into the stadium apparently, but the North End Zone section now blocks that. It's little things like that.

It also bums me out that they didn't do more work on the East side or on the horseshoe at all. Though it may be worth it in the end for the horseshoe as they say that it may be part of whatever they decide to do with the basketball arena (and last I heard they were talking renovation to Assembly Hall and not a new arena--that's my preference).

[dfwabel]

No worries, Pat, I was just kidding. All your points are valid, and like I said, I wasn't really involved first-hand with any of the ones you mentioned anyways.

I definitely agree on the renovations on the whole. It's beautifully done, but they missed little opportunities to re-embrace some of the history and instead took the easy way out. Or they could have renovated IMPE (now ARC) in conjunction with MS, but instead did it separately and while both look nice they don't look integrated. There's a big back window in ARC that was supposed to look into the stadium apparently, but the North End Zone section now blocks that. It's little things like that.

It also bums me out that they didn't do more work on the East side or on the horseshoe at all. Though it may be worth it in the end for the horseshoe as they say that it may be part of whatever they decide to do with the basketball arena (and last I heard they were talking renovation to Assembly Hall and not a new arena--that's my preference).

Renovations to IMPE could not have been difficult to do in conjunction as Campus Rec needed to present a separate referendum to get the approved funds and there would be no telling if it would immediately pass. As someone who worked for DCR less than a decade ago, I knew the C-RCE (aka Wimpe) was to be done first in regards to the campus plan then IMPE on the same referendum. DIA has a different set of plans and obviously needs. Once need to attract athletes, the other to attract more elite students. Ironically both were done in a reaction to the $100M+ projects at Ohio State.

[oddball]

Brian Cook played for Illinois? I always thought he played for Arizona, or is that another Brian Cook?

[STL FANATIC]

Brian Cook played for Illinois? I always thought he played for Arizona, or is that another Brian Cook?

This Brian Cook is the one who spent a number of years on the Lakers and is now on the Magic.

Not sure if there's another.

[STL FANATIC]

Renovations to IMPE could not have been difficult to do in conjunction as Campus Rec needed to present a separate referendum to get the approved funds and there would be no telling if it would immediately pass. As someone who worked for DCR less than a decade ago, I knew the C-RCE (aka Wimpe) was to be done first in regards to the campus plan then IMPE on the same referendum. DIA has a different set of plans and obviously needs. Once need to attract athletes, the other to attract more elite students. Ironically both were done in a reaction to the $100M+ projects at Ohio State.

Sounds legit.

It just sure would have been nice to see a little bit of consideration for the other, but not a huge deal. It's not as though they clash or anything. They in fact both look very nice.