Just Imagine: Houston Rockets

I initially started the "Just Imagine" contest over on the AsylumBoards. Basically, the premise was off of Stan Lee's Just Imagine Comic Series (a series which he took the names of established DC Comics characters and gave them a complete new spin on it), but to do it with sports teams. 

Sadly, the idea didn't take off like I hoped it would (maybe next year!), but out of it came some really imaginative concepts (which was really the purpose of it). 

Oddly enough, the first "Just Imagine" concept I did was one for the Pittsburgh Pirates then the Detroit Red Wings (both of which are in sketch phase and in process of finishing for posting). Houston was just the brainchild of a thread I saw on the Creamerboards, followed by some geniune accidental design work.

Logo History of the Houston Rockets


 First things first: I had to scrap just about everything the Rockets used before and start fresh. Did my homework on various rocket designs and old NASA mission patches; chose colors which I felt best reflected Space and that "Astro" (for lack of a better term) look. Out are the Red/Gold and in are Navy, White and Silver.

First Concept..

So - there's a few things I did right.. and some I did wrong. From what others have told me, I pretty much nailed this on the first try. Complaints/Issues included too many outlines on the "Rockets" wordmark and the unnecessary "R" logo on the secondary.

Round 2..

In this version, I simplified the wordmark and removed the "R" from the secondary. It looks good, but something's off on the main logo..


Houston...we have lift-off!


I changed the wordmark altogether on this one to go with something more retro/space race-esque. While the modern may work, there's something about the simple script which works better in my eyes.

Uniforms based off of this design are a possiblity as I know people want to see how this works on a uniform set. Future update? Maybe..