The HabForum

When I was at SC recently, they had some pretty cool Camp Alumni shirts. I really had too many SC shirts by then (if such a thing is possible) but I just couldn't resist getting one of these as well before leaving Huntsville.
I got to thinking, it's be really cool to have a patch that denotes you've already been to SC. The actual SC logo is a trademark so you can't use that, but I seriously started thinking about the design for such a thing. I don't think you can even use the Space Camp name as that, too, is a trademark, right?
I just wondered how tough it’d be to modify the shuttle crew Mach 25 patch design for creative purposes....

Perhaps one could make the “5” into an “X” and put “Camp” in place of “Mach” to make a patch for a second stay at space camp? Just wondering, as it’d be a funny thing to put on a camp flight suit for the next time there.
Just thinking...

Ah yes, as alumni, we've needed a way to distance ourselves from the rookies for some time. Just having your wings pinned on your flightsuit or shirt just isn't enough sometimes!

For the 25th anniversary (2007) we got polo shirts with this embroidered design:



Not very special or well thought out, but better than nothing. Once they ran out, that was it, and until the t-shirts this year we've been SOL on alumni-branded clothing items.

When Boomerang and I were working on putting together an Alumni Association, I created this logo:



The above "design" is really just more of a badge incorporating the existing logo, and never meant to be circulated as any kind of finalized or complete logo for our organization. This was a quick, early exercise meant to be a placeholder until I could get around to creating a more original and better thought-out logo for us that would be worthy of being made into flightsuit patches, pins, hats etc. Boomerang and I backed off from our efforts to create our own third party Alumni Association after Dr. Barnhart came back and took some of our proposals into consideration. The Alumni Association that I envisioned (in its fully developed form) would have a lot of perks to it based around Space Camp attendance and tenure that would encourage repeat visits and build a sense of prestiege within the alumni ranks, and would serve as a breeding ground for future Space Camp Hall Of Famers or act as a SC HOF "minor league" if you will.

More than anything, i wish you could get Space Camp wings embriodered on a nameplate (but more than anything, I wish you could get the wings they give the trainers as an embroidered version) or placed on shirts.
I like your alumni idea very much, such a shame nothing's come of it yet.
I almost didn't grab the alumni shirt, but from looking into this forum I realized it might the only time I'd see something like that, so it was the last thing I bought before I got into the van and drove away...

Actually we did get something out of the proposal we made. The mothership created the Alumni Community on their website http://www.spacecamp.com/community/. This is almost exactly like the "Alumni Database" that we outlined in our 2010 proposal. I'd still like to see them develop some of our other ideas, but I have to give them time as I know their hands are full doing other things. If by next summer we don't have any new alumni-related ideas being implemented by the mothership, then perhaps it will be time to readdress them on the issue.

My avatar is a patch that I made up after the first Alumni camp. My wife and I have a home embroidery business and we sell the patches for $12 each. The Latin inscription on the bottom reads "Vidi, Opus, Donatus Vestis", literally, "I came, the task was completed, I was given clothing". In other words, "Been there, Done that, Got the T-shirt". If you're interested http://www.sewwhatever.com then click on the "Habitat Patch" button. We take PayPal.

bnaivar wrote:If you're interested http://www.sewwhatever.com then click on the "Habitat Patch" button. We take PayPal.

Man, I really like that! Expect an order this weekend (got to wait until the next paycheck as we're a little tight on funds after our cross-country roadtrip vacation...
Such a good design, a camper would recognize it but the public wouldn't right away. I also love funny slants on latin slogans (in the Army, we used to create funny or obscene ones for deployments just for fun).

High praise from a fellow patch maker. Thank you.

I went with my original idea...

I have James working on a couple of these for me right now with the last of my mission patches. As soon as I'm confirmed for my second trip to SC, I'll be putting it on my flight suit right underneath my nametape.

Cool! Could I get one with 13X for mine? I am hoping to go to the alumni camp that is being proposed for September and it will be my 13th time.

Conan wrote:Cool! Could I get one with 13X for mine? I am hoping to go to the alumni camp that is being proposed for September and it will be my 13th time.

The design as I have it is a joke on the "MACH 25" patch, 13 would sort of null and void the humor to it.

Okay, here it is in hand now!

Really nice patches. Does u wife make custom patches? If so does she have basic cost?

Steve wrote:Really nice patches. Does u wife make custom patches?

Nah, I wish! I had the same guy who made our Team Columbia patches make this with the final run of our SC group patches. He'd already made really good replicas of the MACH25 patch, so modifying his line art was really easy.

Well, here's a new logo, but I won't my breath waiting for patches to be made for it...

I saw the new logo too. I quite like it, actually. Better than the 'disappointed astronaut dad' logo they adopted last year.

Interesting that they use STS for SC but a F16 instead of a F35 for AC

(I meant SLS, fumble on my part)

majtom7 wrote:Interesting that they use STS for SC but a F16 instead of a F35 for AC

That doesn't look like STS to me, more like the proposed Orion rocket configuration (or a Saturn V/Orion hybrid rocket - it looks a bit odd). The F16 is a bit back-dated, for sure, but this is 'alumni' so I guess it could work in a 'looking back' sense.

Your right it's not the STS it is the Space Launch System or SLS. As to why they used the F-16 you'd probably have to ask Hotdog as this is once again his design. He originally used the shuttle instead of SLS but they wanted the SLS instead. May have gone with the F-16 since it is one of the aircraft Ac has on sight and it is still in use where most of the aC ones are no longer used by the military. Maybe Hotdog can chime in here on this.

Designing a single all-encompassing logo for both Space Camp and AC was quite a challenge, even for a highly-skilled designer such as myself who does this sort of thing for a living. SC and AC are two different worlds, and ideally I would have liked to have done separate alumni logos for each program. That would have been a piece of cake! But a single logo was needed, not only to represent the alumni of both programs, but also our new alumni association. So you have sort of a trichotomy there where you have to bring together something that works for all applications into one design. Therein lied my challenge.



Here you see the original concept of the logo. SpaceCanada is right, as an alumni logo, this was meant to be "looking back" and not forward. That's the reasoning behind the Shuttle and the F-16. Every one of our 600,000 alumni have trained in the shuttle, and I'm assuming the F-16 at AC. With the shuttle on there, every one of our SC alumni would identify with this form of the design. The board did not see things the same way, and asked me to change the shuttle to the SLS so it would be "forward looking". When this happened, I wanted to start over and see if I could come up with something else that worked better with SLS, but everyone seemed to love it and I doubt showing a new design would have swayed anyone away at that point. I expected more feedback and development to "grow" the design further, but everyone was happy, so here we are.

For anyone not happy with the current rendering, sit tight, as I have plans for a more simplified, "formal" version with fewer colors that will be more "black tie". It may not be meant as a total replacement, but for special events or occasions. I haven't ran this by the board yet, as I have not had time to sit down and do the work, but perhaps if it turns out good it might be useful for something.

Looking back, looking forward...what we are really doing is looking up! Like the astronaut and fighter pilot in the logo. The sky is the limit for what we can achieve as alumni, and that's the image the logo tries to convey with the SLS breaking out into space. I encourage all of you to sign up with the alumni association on our website and get involved in any way you can. We are lucky to finally be getting this opportunity to have our voices heard in the future advancement of Space Camp and to be able to help things grow. The STA is just the beginning of what we can do.

Sprocket may not want to make this into real patches, but that doesn't mean that we alumni couldn't raise funds to have them made ourselves. After all, we brought the plane to Space Camp and that was a much larger amount to raise!