platemaker... i'm assuming that i'm a member of the general public. i am well traveled and do hope to have a bit of culture... i am not very fond of the olive garden but i still give it an F.

My bad... the Oklahoman's Reader's Choice this year for best Italian was Johnny's Carinos... ;)


and since we are on the subject... doesn't this "general public", whom you have such a low opinion of, make up the majority of the people purchasing the tickets and the gear? who cares if they don't like it... they don't know good italian! pfft!

No... it makes up the cross section of Oklahoman readers that vote in the Reader's Choice. The basic point I was trying to make is: give someone the opportunity to say something negative and they will take it... or worse give someone the opportunity to give their opinion on a subject they know nothing about and they will take it.

Anyone that has worked in hospitality (food service, hotel, casino) can tell you... a good majority of comment cards will be "bitch, bitch, bitch" and an occasional "thanks" thrown in.

I've noticed many of these online polls... to do with this subject or not... are just soapboxes.


but there is no way i would rep my city with that horrid thing. i'm not gonna purposely give people from other states more ammunition to dump on oklahoma. i guess that's what also irks me... we were given another chance to shed our mediocre, mundane image... and we FAILED!

Sorry 'bout ya.... way to promote. If they saw that shirt I'm sure it would be "oh wow... OKC has an NBA team... " not "OH MY GOD, BECKY! LOOK AT THAT GUY'S T-SHIRT!!! THAT LOGO IS NOT PHAT!"

On the other hand.... ASK that outsider "what do you think about the quality of this logo?" and they are liable to pick it apart.


look at it from this prespective. barry manilow puts out a song. it's super, effing lame. however, everyone with no taste is like "but wait, barry has more songs coming out". either way... it's still more crappy barry manilow songs.

What a hypocrite! You're arguing a point in the same basic way I did! Aren't those people that brought umpteen Barry Manilow albums and gave him hit records that you have such a low opinion of the same people that will..... oh never mind.

Here are some interesting comments from a corporate logo and branding website:

Brand New: Thunder? What Thunder? (http://www.underconsideration.com/brandnew/archives/thunder_what_thunder.php#comments)

This logo is horrible. I am really embarassed and dissapointed. It looks like they put no effort into it at all. Everyone I showed laughed. Most said what the hell's the logo gonna be? A rain cloud lol? And Im living in New York with people from all over the country.

I guess you guys are right. It's so bad, that it's killing sales:

Thunder wear sets new record in opening sales period | NewsOK.com (http://newsok.com/thunder-wear-sets-new-record-in-opening-sales-period/article/3293185/?tm=1220590270)



It's Adidas .... here we go.. more things to complain about.

I'm actually really glad it's Adidas. They have much more fashionable stuff a lot of the time and it's a great international brand. I went to the Thunder Shop and they had some good stuff. Their track jackets were very cool, imo.

Wow, harsh review on UniWatch.....


Well, that was certainly worth all the buildup, right? I’ll have more to say about this over on the Page 2 index page this morning (you can find it here), but for now I’ll quote a reaction I saw on the Chris Creamer board: “That logo is so bad, I think we need to give the whole state back to the Indians, steal it back, and start fresh.” Amen, brother.

And this review on ESPN today getting a HUGE front page story on Page 2:

ESPN - Page 2 (http://sports.espn.go.com/espn/page2/index)


UNI WATCH WEIGHS IN ON OKC
I'm not sure what Thunder looks like, but I'm pretty sure it isn't this.

That's the first problem with the NBA's relocated-to-OKC franchise, whose name (an open secret for weeks) and logo were finally made official Wednesday: Thunder doesn't lend itself to visual depictions (along other issues), which makes it tough to design a snappy logo.

So instead they went for something painfully generic. Obligatory depiction of a basketball? Check. Color scheme that pairs blue with some shade of orange, yellow, or gold, just like one, two, three, four, five, six, seven, eight other NBA teams? Check. Design that vaguely evokes the Doritos logo? Check. And mate.

All kidding aside, it's a perfectly pleasant design -- nice colors, decent balance, easy to read -- but it doesn't say anything. Looks like the seal for the local chamber of commerce or something. And c'mon, where's the powerful impact of a thunderclap? Where are the dark colors of storm clouds? Many of the submissions in Page 2's recent Uni Watch design contest were much, much better.

The team's uniforms won't be unveiled for another few weeks, so what was the point of unveiling the logo now anyway? Here's a hint. Lest there be any confusion regarding the real point of the unveiling, this link went live about two hours before the press conference started (thereby providing a sneak peek at the logo for the six or seven fans who hadn't already seen it when it was leaked over the weekend). By the time team owner Clay Bennett stepped up to the podium to speak, my in-box had already started to fill up with reactions like this and this.

But for the best feedback, just check out this shot. That's Damien Wilkins on the left, gaping in disbelief and probably thinking, "Man, I hope the uniforms are better than this." He's not the only one.
--Paul Lukas

Here are some interesting comments from a corporate logo and branding website:

Brand New: Thunder? What Thunder? (http://www.underconsideration.com/brandnew/archives/thunder_what_thunder.php#comments)

OK so the logo isn't the greatest... but obviously it's not keeping people from buying stuff.

OK - I waited a couple of days to see if the name and logo would grow on me before making a comment. After 2 days they both still suck. In fact, the name Thunder is actually getting worse in my mind. They should have gone with 89ers.

LOL... wait a cotton pickin' minute!
This was Uni Watch's best overall pick from their design contest.... and they had a bunch of entries!!!

YUCK!
http://i284.photobucket.com/albums/ll14/Platemaker_photos/settlers.jpg

FYI...for those interested here are a few hundred logos submitted in the UniWatch contest. I like many of them, even some from names I originally didn't like, including some Thunder entries:

OKC - a set on Flickr (http://www.flickr.com/photos/65516705@N00/sets/72157606440038571/detail/)

Edcrunk, I agree with most of what you said. How about still repping OKC at your gigs (and this would help spread the Major League City word), by using the black practice t-shirts that were launched this summer? They are much more respectable and closer to what I think most of us were expecting.

http://media.ksbitv.com/images/OKCGear4Sale340.jpg

good looking out metro! i had been planning on picking one of those up, but hadn't thought of wearing it in that regard. i was just so looking forward to the new colors, logo and what not.

The logo, colors, and name are a disappointment. I'm sure it will change in time though. I was excited about getting some merch, but now I'll prolly just a tee for the sake of having one of the first official tees - and rarely, if ever, wear it.
Cool colors can help save a crappy name - not redeem, help - but they blew it. Guess all we can do is wait for improvements.

Jenni Carlson from The Oklahoman loves the logo.
NewsOK.tv (http://www.newsok.tv/?titleID=1772821547)

Imagine that.

There's not a lot here I would have liked..

OKC - a set on Flickr (http://www.flickr.com/photos/65516705@N00/sets/72157606440038571/detail/?page=8)

The Thundering Buffalo is awesome. Heavy sigh.....

One of things that bothers me the most about the logo is it wan't even designed on a computer. It was done with sticky tape from an art store. If you take the logo into photoshop and zoom in you can actually see the edge of the adhesive tape around each item.

I guess anyone who likes it and can't bring themselves to complain and don't feel miserable just is lacking in taste. Why can't we let all these internet posters choose. Who needs professional artists when we have all these self proclaimed gurus of marketing.

One of things that bothers me the most about the logo is it wan't even designed on a computer. It was done with sticky tape from an art store. If you take the logo into photoshop and zoom in you can actually see the edge of the adhesive tape around each item.

AHHHH c'mon Kerry! ! don't believe that for a second!

What electronic copy of the logo do you have... obviously not one from a press kit or anything!

Platemaker - I will need to go back and findout where I got my electronic copy from but in Photoshop you can clearly see the ditortion caused by the clear adhesive around every object. You can even see where the name THUNDER was spelled out and the mylar was cut at the top to create the curved effect. Heck, you can even see with the naked eye that the "R" at the end isn't even linning up with right side of the logo. No way you could be that far off with a computer.

The image you have has to be a copy of a copy... suggesting they didn't even use a computer is just silly.

If it's a bad copy it's a bad copy... Photoshop doesn't increase the resolution on images.

As far as the "hanging R" thing. The cross on the T hangs off just as far... even centering things with a computer doesn't eliminate optical illusions.

The image you have has to be a copy of a copy... suggesting they didn't even use a computer is just silly.

If it's a bad copy it's a bad copy... Photoshop doesn't increase the resolution on images.

No, but it does let me select pixels by color and what might appear solid white to naked eye is really two different shades of white.

How about still repping OKC at your gigs by using the black practice t-shirts that were launched this summer? They are much more respectable and closer to what I think most of us were expecting.

Hmmmm.

A generic logo with a basketball and the name Oklahoma City

vs.

A generic logo with a basketball and the names Oklahoma City and Thunder (in the same exact font).


I MUST BE MISSING SOMETHING.

http://www.underconsideration.com/brandnew/archives/thunder_logo.gif

Hmm. (1)Generic logo with a basketball. (2) much better Generic logo with a basketball.

What are we complaining about here?

The native file is a vector graphic - infinitely scalable with clarity. The JPG logo files that most people are passing around use lossy compression - meaning that the quality is diminished in the compression process and cannot be restored. Each successive save typically reduces quality. JPG files can always be scaled down but never up (in terms of maintaining the visual quality of the original JPG file). JPG compression is widely used because it produces less perceivable distortion of images than comparable methods while achieving up to a 10x file size reduction. It is certainly possible that an art department might use tape and film for some form of mock-up but rest assured that the archetype file for all licensed uses is digital and in vector format.

Sorry 'bout ya.... way to promote. If they saw that shirt I'm sure it would be "oh wow... OKC has an NBA team... " not "OH MY GOD, BECKY! LOOK AT THAT GUY'S T-SHIRT!!! THAT LOGO IS NOT PHAT!"

if you only knew how incredibly judgmental these hipsters / nu-raving, dance party goers are. for instance... they would say "OMG, did that plate guy just say PHAT? IDK anyone who even says phat anymore... WTF, that's so 1990's".

(btw, sometime in the twentyteens that term will probably come back into vogue)

however, i would rock this shirt for sure!

http://i278.photobucket.com/albums/kk92/gandjdunlap/thunderT.jpg

it should say oklahoma city on it tho...





What a hypocrite! You're arguing a point in the same basic way I did! Aren't those people that brought umpteen Barry Manilow albums and gave him hit records that you have such a low opinion of the same people that will..... oh never mind.

touche.

http://www.underconsideration.com/brandnew/archives/thunder_logo.gif

Hmm. (1)Generic logo with a basketball. (2) much better Generic logo with a basketball.

What are we complaining about here?

side by side... i do like ours better.

i'll concede that much, jbrown.

If you go to nba.com and click on "store" on the right, you can see a lot of logos that look like ours. But, if you scroll over each logo, you can see that a lot of the teams have at least one other that is more elaborate (or in Detroit's case, even simpler). I'm sure we'll have at least one more logo soon that is more representative of our team/city/state soon. The Hornets have multiple logos: the regular Hornet logo, the hexagon with an "H" and the "fleur-de-bee". We can too.

All right all you guys who would have done better -- draw up your designs and post them or send them to Clay so he'll have the benefit of your expertise!

http://www.underconsideration.com/brandnew/archives/thunder_logo.gif

Hmm. (1)Generic logo with a basketball. (2) much better Generic logo with a basketball.

What are we complaining about here?
I'm coming around to liking it as the news settles. I particularly like it on a black background:

Larger: http://i8.photobucket.com/albums/a49/DougLoudenback/okcthunder/thunderlogo2.jpg

http://i8.photobucket.com/albums/a49/DougLoudenback/okcthunder/thunderlogo2s.jpg

When the hysteria and all the "I could have done better" bravado passes, this design will grow on everyone. When you see it compared to almost all the other NBA logos you will appreciate it more.

i don't think it's bravado when i overhear a girl at sidecar talking about how horrible it is. or when i read mild mannered people who always seem to be positive on myspace and facebook expressing dismay at the design. sure, you can chalk up the nation wide dissing to the typical okie bashing and bitter sonics fans. however, i don't believe berry would write a story about it if there wasn't some merit to the overwhelming dislike of the design.
this is something i don't believe clay can ignore. just read all the comments on newsok.

btw, if miami has a bad logo... it doesn't affect them as adversely due to the fact that they are appreciated and respected in so many other ways. all we are known for is a dustbowl, a bomb and for being continually mediocre. it's understandable that so many people are let down... since so much was riding on that design.

however, i would rock this shirt for sure!

http://i278.photobucket.com/albums/kk92/gandjdunlap/thunderT.jpg


Perfectly viable alternative for those who don't like the logo.


I agree that Clay can't ignore the criticism. I'm sure the subsequent logos will feature more "Thunder". I wouldn't expect the colors to change though.

.oO(a little less orange, that's all I ask, just a wee less orange)Oo.

http://i8.photobucket.com/albums/a49/DougLoudenback/okcthunder/thunderlogo2s.jpg http://www.freeprintablecoloringpages.net/samples/Plants_And_Flowers/Acorn.png

I agree, I think it too looks better on the black, but I still don't get how cheery colors display Thunder. I also think the shape of the logo looks like an acorn.

My theory...

http://i8.photobucket.com/albums/a49/DougLoudenback/okcthunder/thunderlogo2s.jpg
http://farm4.static.flickr.com/3022/2834243231_ea895db8d4.jpg?v=0

Thunder + Bird = Thunderbird

I'm ready for two new polls:

POLL #1: Which is more disappointing?

A) The new Thunder logo
B) The first time you eat Goobers Peanut Butter & Jelly and realize "it's not all that"
C) Falcone's Bricktown location
D) Osama B. L. still at-large, living in a cave and probably watching the NFL ticket on DirectTV
E) (Insert name of announced but never started Bricktown development)
F) Brett Favre leaving the Packers


POLL #2 : Which do you hate more?

A) The new Thunder logo
B) Metro's incessant droning about the bad logo

After a few days, I'm over it. I didn't buy the team so I can't expect them to follow my advice on a logo, no matter how prescient that advice may be. I'm ready for the season to tip-off, plan to buy some gear in the next week and want to get my butt in a seat (Loud City, of course).

BTW, Metro, I'm just gigging you. You have been prolific in the 200+ threads on this board about the Thunder and you haven't exactly been shy with your feelings. Free speech is exactly that - available to all and open to the controversy that comes with it.

Go Thunder!

thunder


how cool would this have been?

POLL #1: Which is more disappointing?

A) The new Thunder logo
B) The first time you eat Goobers Peanut Butter & Jelly and realize "it's not all that"
C) Falcone's Bricktown location
D) Osama B. L. still at-large, living in a cave and probably watching the NFL ticket on DirectTV (would I be un-patriotic if I didn't vote for this one?)
E) (Insert name of announced but never started Bricktown development) (dishonorable mention)
F) Brett Favre leaving the Packers


POLL #2 : Which do you hate more?

A) The new Thunder logo
B) Metro's incessant droning about the bad logo

http://i278.photobucket.com/albums/kk92/gandjdunlap/thunderT.jpg

it should say oklahoma city on it tho...



those are shirts that every NBA team has and none of them have the city name on them...

http://photos-b.ak.facebook.com/photos-ak-snc1/v322/64/18/140301203/n140301203_30298393_1055.jpg

I don't think this is official, but it gives you just an idea of what can be done. Found it on the official Thunder page on Facebook. It think it's official, that is...

I saw that one a few days ago. I never did join that group though.

BTW, there's also a "OKC Thunder Haters" group based in Seattle (surprise surprise) with 49 members. Mostly crybabies. Their group image is a picture that says "I love OKC" with the 'love' crossed out and "hate" written above it.

I bought that generic shirt.

my buddy, roy, compiled all the negative articles and what not about the logo.

http://images.thedenveregotist.com/ok_thunder_logo.jpg

Complex Blog » How Bootleg Is Oklahoma City Thunder’s Logo? (http://www.complex.com/blogs/2008/09/04/how-bootleg-is-the-oklahoma-city-thunder-logo/)

ESPN - Logo Doctor Hates Oklahoma City Logo - TrueHoop By Henry Abbott (http://myespn.go.com/blogs/truehoop/0-34-59/Logo-Doctor-Hates-Oklahoma-City-Logo.html)

Oklahoma Thunder Logo Trashed » Adrants (http://www.adrants.com/2008/09/oklahoma-thunder-logo-trashed.php)

Alternative (and Possibly Seizure-Inducing) Oklahoma City Thunder Logo - NBA FanHouse (http://nba.fanhouse.com/2008/09/09/alternative-and-possibly-seizure-inducing-oklahoma-city-thunde/)

RealGM • View topic - The Atrocious OKC Thunder Logo Broken Down - Why it sucks. (http://www.realgm.com/boards/viewtopic.php?f=6&p=17295380)

Brand New: Thunder? What Thunder? (http://www.underconsideration.com/brandnew/archives/thunder_what_thunder.php)

To OKC Thunder: Thanks for Sucking at Logo Design - OU Insider Forums (http://ouinsider.com/forums/showthread.php?t=70578)

Kevin Durant to play for OKC Thunder - despite sucky logo » Bevo Sports (http://www.bevosports.com/2008/09/03/kevin-durant-to-play-for-okc-thunder-despite-sucky-logo/)

Thunder Logo? (http://blog.newsok.com/nbainokc/2008/09/02/thunder-logo/)

Is this the Oklahoma City Thunder Logo? at The Lost Ogle (http://www.thelostogle.com/2008/08/30/is-this-the-oklahoma-city-thunder-logo/)

One of the links posted a humor as to what OKC's Pro Football team would be.

"The logo says nothing about the team, the city, or the mascot. All it says is swooshy colors and “basketball.” I just hope the state of Oklahoma never gets a pro football team, I shudder to think what their logo would look like."

http://www.bevosports.com/wp-images/football-logo.gif

Although I am in the group which doesn't particularly like the logo, I must confess I've already forgotten about it. And, in looking at other NBA logos, I'm not sure ours doesn't fit right in. Very few of them are interesting at all. When it comes down to it, were I in Washington D.C., I'd be cheering on the team with the worst name, the silliest logo and the ugliest road uniforms, thinking nothing of it at all. Where's all the uproar about a team named the Wizards, with that ridiculous logo and those disgusting black and gold road unis? If there was any, people have long since forgotten about it. I'm excited about watching NBA basketball in Oklahoma City.

Maybe the Thunder can go talk with the people that designed the OKC Redhawks logo.

Good thought process. The Wizards logo sucks so it is OK for the Thunder logo to suck.

As much as I hate it...I'm getting over it.

I like The redhawks logo an colors

"The logo says nothing about the team, the city, or the mascot. All it says is swooshy colors and “basketball.”

That's the case with at least a third of the NBA logos, but I don't see anyone complaining about those. It's just anti-Oklahoma bias.

I think it is fine. Clay and his team knows what they are doing. They want to give it time to get the feel of how the team is and develop their own identity. The time will come when the right logo will be made. Something like this shouldn't be rushed. They did the best they can for now.