Finis Collins has made a name for himself in San Antonio with his watercolors. But few know that the 93-year-old artist’s most famous work comes in silver and black.Collins’s iconic design has been close to players’ chests and fans’ hearts for nearly 50 years, emblazoned on jerseys, T-shirts and just about any other licensed or bootlegged merch you can imagine. And in true Spurs fashion, Collins is proud yet humble about his contribution to the team.
Collins drew up the original Spurs logo in 1973 while working at the Pitluk Group, one of the top advertising agencies in San Antonio at the time. “It could be up in the corner. It could be down at the bottom. I could do it a thousand ways, because they never told me to put the where it is. It could have been anywhere,” Collins said.
When it came time to finalize the logo, Collins already was working on another project, so he asked Pitluk artist Bob Welch to make the Spurs sig camera-ready. Welch retraced and finished the logo in black and white, much like an inker finalizes a penciller’s drawings in comic books.