Bay High senior designs new Rockets logo

The Bay Village Board of Education has approved a new logo for its Bay Village Rockets athletic teams, music groups and other student activity groups. It is a sleek, blue and red rocket designed by Bay High senior, Marek Mutch. Mutch’s design took first place in a Bay Rocket Logo Contest held by the district in November. The second place winner was senior Kaleigh Sima and third place went to junior Max Langer.

The Bay Rocket Logo Contest generated 167 student entries ranging from the traditional, to the whimsical, to the sophisticated. The selection jury of 20 members included students, staff, coaches and parents. Using a voting and discussion process that winnowed down the number of entries through a process of elimination, the three top winners were selected.

“The rocket could definitely be described as an Art Deco style,” said Gloria Wilder, art instructor at Bay Middle School. Art Deco is a classic, streamlined style, with geometric shapes, angles and straight lines. “It could also fall into the Futurism style. Both styles came into vogue during the early twentieth century.”

Greg Leininger, also an art instructor at Bay Middle School, agreed. “It might also fall into the Minimalist Modern category,” he added.

Whatever the style of the new logo, a number of the district’s student groups are getting ready to use the design on clothing and sports items. The rocket will appear on this season’s wrestling gear, and it will be part of the new uniforms being adopted by the Bay High School Marching Band, for which the Bay High Band Boosters have been raising funds.

Mutch said he looked at the evolution of a variety of logos like Pepsi and Gatorade which he says have gone to a simpler yet more stylized design.

He hasn’t decided on a college yet, but would like to study digital art.

“I’ve always done art,” he said. “But I’ve become much more passionate about computer art in the last two years. I’ve recently started to get into other art mediums, though, and I have to say that has helped my computer art even more.”

The Bay High Rockets, as do many high school athletic teams, adopted a favorite logo about 10 years ago from an admired college with the same team name; in this case, the Toledo Rockets. Bay Village Schools superintendent Clint Keener contacted the University of Toledo recently when a new gymnasium floor was being installed at the high school.

“I wanted to get formal approval from them to use the logo because we were thinking of having it painted into the gym floor,” he said. However, Keener learned that the district could no longer use the University of Toledo rocket design.

“They declined to give us permission,” he said. “And I understand. As it turns out, we saw it as an opportunity to involve students in a future symbol of our team and school spirit.”

Keener said that the district will pursue a trademark for the new design. “There are an unbelievable number of rockets in use for logos out there,” he said. “Any one of them resembles another in some way. But the board is adopting our rocket to be used with ‘Bay Rockets’ or ‘Bay Village Rockets’ and our school colors to make it clear that this is our own logo.”

The Bay Village Schools sports teams have been the Rockets since 1947, but no one in the district can recall the board ever formally adopting a rocket logo. “There have been all kinds of rockets over the years,” said Amy Huntley, president of the Bay Village Board of Education and an alumna of Bay High School. “Now we’ll have one that we can definitely call our own.”

The first home basketball game on Friday, Jan. 27, will include a celebration of the new logo and recognition of the top three art logo competition winners. “There will be some surprises that evening,” said Keener. “I encourage everyone to come and cheer on our Bay Rockets."