What’s on our logo?

How do you know when you are “home” at www.LHSAthleticHallofFame.com?

What to put on the top of the site to welcome people?
Person, place, sport or Lowell? All? None? Read on to find out more about our strategy…

Who gets to be on top? How do you tackle this topic? What we are using for the website “header” or top introductory area, is just the first round of developing a “look” that communicates to readers and websurfers that they have come to the right place: The Lowell High Athletic Hall of Fame site. Not Lowell, Kansas; not Lowell High School in California, named after the poet  James Russell Lowell; and not even the UMass at Lowell Hall of Fame….but ours.

LHS Symbols

There are historical symbols of both Lowell and Lowell High School. The LHS Clocks, the Stadium, the old yellow brick building, the tunnel over the canal. All instantly recognizable as LHS in Lowell, Massachusetts.

 

Sports

There are many varsity sports at LHS currently; and too many to fit on a logo:

Baseball
Basketball
Cheerleading
Crew
Field Hockey
Football
Golf
Gymnastics
Hockey
Lacrosse
Skiing
Soccer
Softball
Swimming
Tennis
Track and/or Cross Country
Volleyball
Wrestling

Time, Longevity…a school founded in 1831

Lowell is fastidious about it’s history; we have an athlete in our Hall of Fame from the Class of 1905. Unlike many newer schools, we really DO have a history. Our football records, kept by Bob Boehm, stretch back to 1890! Our site shouldn’t look like we are a new school, it should reflect an old-world feeling of dignity. LHS has graduated over 100,000 students; we have 135 members of the Athletic Hall of Fame.

Colors

Some red, some gray and lots of shades in between: burgundy, cardinal, crimson, garnet, maroon and many more shades and names of red. Additionally, the gold from the LHS brick building is also a distinctive color and reminiscent of aged, historical paper.

 Photos: What do we have?

Well, eventually, we will have thousands of photos to choose from.  Not all photos will work in a logo setting. We also have many different coaches and athletes, and don’t want hurt feelings, or “why isn’t my sport/coach/photo” featured? So we are experimenting now, at the beginning when we are still trying to pull in all the data and photos into the basic structure and search capabilities. We pulled some random photos from several different sports.

This photo of Coach Riddick looks like a sketch, and has a unique background of football players carefully layered in behind him. Picked because it reflects a pensive, serious, timeless look of a coach, any coach, in front of his team.

We also have other photos, with more to emerge, of our other great and respected coaches, and will find a way to use them! Here is another great timeless shot of Coach George Bossi, with “Lowell” clearly showing on his wrestler’s shirt.

 

 

The Kitchen Sink Approach (throw ’em all in there!)

How do we put them all on a logo? Well, we can try and cram them all in there, but then it looks like it (kinda messy and distracting from the athlete bios right below it):

Header with everything

Header with everything–including the mustard and ketchup!

 Basic artboards

We came up with 2 basic artboards we can change out with athlete photos and text:

The 2 Favorite Looks: First Drafts

The 2 favorite looks take pieces of the LHS colors, symbols, sports and combine them using representative sample photos:

Uses a more yellowed, antique look along with the clock and stadium plus a tagline. Balances the 2 most-represented sports of football and track, with “Lowell” clearly showing on the runner’s shirt.

 

Where do we go from here?

First, we’ll get the data and photos up on the site, then fix the search capabilities. Those are the top priorities. Then we’ll revisit the look of the site, with input from the athletes and the Board of Directors who oversee the LHS Athletic Hall of Fame.  We’ll keep changing the header to keep it fresh and share the spotlight. Stay tuned!

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Many thanks to the Lowell Sun for preserving all our articles, photos and memories throughout the years.