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Dimensional Innovations Develops Stylish Hornets Nest

Company builds signage, lockers for NBA team’s facilities

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In 1988, the inception of the NBA’s Charlotte Hornets made basketball-mad North Carolina practically euphoric. The team enjoyed modest success until its 2002 relocation to New Orleans. Charlotte was soon thereafter granted an expansion team, the Bobcats, in 2004, but the team generally fared poorly. Last year, in an effort to recapture the city’s original NBA brand, owner – and NBA immortal — Michael Jordan renamed the team the Hornets (the New Orleans team had since become the Pelicans) and created excited with its “Buzz City” marketing campaign.
The Hornets sought a winning environment in its locker room and impressive environmental graphics. The team hired Dimensional Innovations (Overland Park, KS) to build the signage and logo graphics, which included an illuminated overhead graphic, several wall-mounted logo signs and other branded elements.
“I estimate about 40% of our work is now done in the sports-facility marketplace, which is a big change from even five years ago,” Justin Wood, a Dimensional Innovations project manager, said. “Officials who represent pro or college teams want their facilities to be recruiting tools. This job was unique, because we managed the entire project ourselves, rather than working for a design firm or general contractor.”
The central element involved the expansive Hornet logo overhead, which was constructed to integrate into the cell-pattern ceiling, which resembles a hive. The aluminum-frame, plastic-faced structure features internal, color-changing LEDs that cycle through the team’s teal, purple and gray colors.
The wall signage features the team’s revamped logo, a sleeker version of the original logo with a slightly altered color palette. The signs were fabricated from CNC-routed aluminum decorated with Matthews acrylic-polyurethane paint and backlit with a white-LED silhouette that provides a cool aura for the fierce-looking logo. In other areas, such as the players’ lounge, the logo is replicated as a routed, brushed-aluminum wall graphic. Other signs were fabricated from Sintra® composite media and painted.
Dimensional Innovations’ role extended beyond signage. The company’s sister organization, Shield Casework, built the ceiling structure, the lounge’s wood paneling and the lockers themselves, among other amenities. Because Dimensional Innovations essentially functioned as a general contractor, its scope covered concerns signshops don’t typically address.
“MRSA [an especially virulent form of staph] has become an epidemic in pro sports leagues, so, to design the locker rooms, we had to create a materials list that would reduce its spread,” Wood said. “We created solid-surface locker-room doors, which is a big difference from the lockers we grew up with. We also had to make sure our subcontractors installed anti-microbial carpeting.”
He said he hopes to create an NBA trend: “This is a much different graphic treatment than you’ll see in most NBA facilities. It’s still confidential, but we’re working with another team on a similar program.”
 

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