National Basketball Association - Houston Rockets

Houston Rockets Unveil New Logo

By DAVID BARRON
© 2003 Houston Chronicle

If you see someone walking around Houston wearing a red cap bearing a white "R" that you suspect could resemble the Rockets' new logo ... you're right.

It is the Rockets' new logo.

Team employees have been distributing sample caps bearing the new logo to friends and acquaintances for the last two weeks. Another 800 or so will be mailed over the next week - in boxes marked "Top Secret" - to Houston corporate executives and to potential suite purchasers at the new downtown arena.

The caps provide the public's first look at the new design that will adorn Rockets caps, T-shirts, jackets - and, yes, the team's uniforms - beginning with the 2003-2004 NBA season this fall.

Tim McDougall, the Rockets' vice president for marketing, remains close-mouthed about details of the new uniform, which is being assembled by NBA officials and won't be publicly unveiled until September.

But the flying "R" logo provides a preview of what certainly will be one of the outstanding features of the new uniform. Another hint is that the cap is a vibrant red, signaling a return of that color as a dominant feature for the Rockets' work clothes. The uniforms also will have dashes of silver, black and white.

The best news for longtime Rockets fans is that there are no pinstripes. And the snaggle-toothed, needle-nosed cartoon rocket ship that had adorned the team's uniforms since the 1995-96 season is no more.

The signature "R" in the logo, designed by Academy Award-winning costume designer Eiko Ishioka, is configured to resemble a rocket's nose cone at the top and features twin exhaust trails at the bottom. Ishioka's design, McDougall said, attempts to demonstrate the vertical nature of basketball - and of rockets, for that matter.

The logo has the blessing of team owner Leslie Alexander, who junked the familiar red and gold colors of the Rockets' longtime uniform in the wake of the team's back-to-back NBA championships in 1993 and 1994.

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