Wright State University Astronomy Club

The Fascinating History of our Logo!

In October of last year when WSUAC first got started, one of our first projects was the development of a logo to identify ourselves with. I had no idea where to even begin, so I asked the membership for ideas. First to take up the challenge was member Penny Morris, who (with the generous help of a Photoshop-savvy friend) provided us with this Photoshop concept:

The idea was simple but beautiful: Rowdy, our university mascot, peering through a telescope at the stars. It just so happens that the wolf, Wright State's mascot in recent years, is also one of the 88 official constellations; its name is Lupus. That's the sky pattern that the telescope is aimed at.

I submitted Penny's concept design to the membership and sought approval and suggestions for further refinement. Everyone loved the basic idea. Another of our members, Renae Avey, soon responded with a couple of alternate pictures (.BMP files) to use in the logo, reproduced here:

A couple of weeks later I finally found time to sit down and work on some refinements of my own for the logo. I just adored the cute little Rowdy Raider Renae had submitted, and since he was perched up higher he'd be better able to reach a telescope's eyepiece. I drew out a design that incorporated all of the important elements; here is my original concept drawing.

I took the pics I was going to use and headed for the Student Technology Assistance Center up on the second floor of Dunbar Library. STAC employee Jason Lipiec assisted me with navigating the complexities of Photoshop CS3, and he was a very big help. Being finicky about the telescope and not preferring any of the designs submitted to that point, I initially experimented with a photo of a refractor telescope I had found on the Internet. It looked okay, but ultimately I decided to stay with the "cartoony" theme and subsequently scavenged a nice-looking telescope from this photo:

Needless to say, the nerdy guy in the picture got "pink-slipped" Photoshop-style, and his telescope was given to Rowdy. All that remained after this was to insert the Lupus constellation, and I soon found a great rendering of it (with a black background) online:

All of these elements came together extremely well into the final product, the finishing touch being the green and gold colors of Wright State in the border:

And that's the story! Our club is forever in debt to everyone who helped out with the design ideas; you are all saluted for your creativity and innovation! Of course, this is just the beginning, and I expect our logo will continue to undergo modification with time. For now, though, let's all be proud of one of the niftiest student organization logos on this campus. Go Raider astronomers!

UPDATE March 8^th, 2009: The WSUAC logo painting in the tunnels has been updated with the initials of Renae Avey. The omission of her initials was a grave error on Pat Craig's part, and profuse apologies are offered. We truly appreciate Renae's very important contribution to the logo design. Click here to see a photo.