The New University Of California Logo Needs To Die A Quick, Painful Death

http://www.californiagoldenblogs.com/2012/12/8/3742854/uc-logo-kill-it-with-fire

by Flopsy • 14 years ago

61 42 14 years ago

niketdesai• 14 years ago

CTRL-Z. For the love of education & taste.

solox32• 14 years ago

A small university also went through a similar controversy a while back (http://www.universityaffairs.ca/margin-notes/new-university-...). Their solution was to keep half of the logo, brush it up a bit, and ignore all outside opinions until people stop complaining.

Who thinks UC will do the same?

swang• 14 years ago

Are you joking when you say the University of Waterloo is a small school?

solox32• 14 years ago

No. Compared to the big-shots in the Silicon Valley, we Canadians are not at all significant. Even in Canada alone, we still have plenty of room to improve. We only look good because WLU is making us appear that way.

peeters• 14 years ago

Reminds me of the controversy over the University of Waterloo's upgrade to their new logo (affectionately named the "pew pew" logo for obvious reasons).

http://oncampus.macleans.ca/education/2009/08/02/waterloo-wa...

andrewcross• 14 years ago

Haha that's what I was thinking when I read this. Hopefully they have more success than we had.

vnchr• 14 years ago

I have no affiliation with the state of California or its universities, but that logo is upsetting. Universities' business models are far more dependent on maintaining relationships with alumni (usually via long established traditions and shared values) making the consequences exceptionally significant.

herbig• 14 years ago

I was expecting to be annoyed by this post, but when it first popped up and I saw the "Let there be light" thing as the start of the video, I thought to myself, yeah, I would be offended too if my school had a blatant biblical reference as their seal. God damn right it would have to go.

But no, this is about an ugly new logo. Why does no one mount a campaign to remove the religious pandering?

sliverstorm3• 14 years ago

Is "Let there be light" really a blatant biblical reference? I mean, I have just learned the phrase is biblical in origin, but even now I don't see an appeal to the bible in its use by UC. It's not like fiat lux is out of context for a University.

mturmon• 14 years ago

I don't think anyone would accuse the UC system of having a problem with religious pandering, so such a campaign would be an empty gesture.

smsm422• 14 years ago

Yes, light, enlightenment, etc. - no way that could fit something an university does. It is very offensive - how they could use the same words that are mentioned in Bible? And worse yet, the same letters too (well, at least if you take the English translation, but that's what we are offended about, right?) I think somebody should sue them for all the great harm they caused by displaying such an offensive slogan. This can not stand! Let them use words and letters that could not be connected to the Bible in any way! Let them use Klingon!

sliverstorm3• 14 years ago

Sir, I believe key pieces of the bible have been translated to Klingon.

msutherl• 14 years ago

ugh, that video made me kind-of like it

up_and_up• 14 years ago

Speaking as an alum, this is horse shit. I used to work at an Ad Agency so I know how much time/money/thought went into the logo development. Sad that that is the best they could come up with. How much money did they throw at this that could have gone to much better use. Knowing Cal, people will raise hell and this will not stand.

city41• 14 years ago

I'm also an alum and worked as a graphic designer for about 5 years. I don't think it's that bad, and used properly is actually pretty effective.

scottbruin• 14 years ago

Note that this is a new logo for the UC system, not for Cal. I didn't read through this whole blog post (the UCLA SB Nation blog is full of angry people too) but there seems to be some confusion about that.

HaloZero• 14 years ago

Apparently the reasoning from the administration was the current UC Logo is not very web-friendly. It has a small text and is not easily distinguishable. But the original logo would be on any official correspondance (diplomas), just not the website / donation outreach efforts.

http://latimesblogs.latimes.com/lanow/2012/12/critics-say-ne...

31reasons• 14 years ago

It looks like an icon on the flush button of a hypothetical japanese toilet.

kafkaesque• 14 years ago

It looks like a frozen loading sign on Windows.

rolleiflex• 14 years ago

The logo isn't too bad—I'd even say its greatest sin is that it is unremarkable, rather than badly designed. Weird gradients here and there ends up looking like a web design company trying to get out of Web 2.0 era, but in general, the application, extensions, brand guidelines and else are actually very well done: it might be even more important than the actual logo in that such a sprawling organization like University of California requires incessant variation and alternative uses above all else. Waterloo logo was a disaster, GAP's, also one, but this might have been blown way out of proportion.

bpatrianakos• 14 years ago

It's actually not that bad. This seems more like people reacting badly to change than anything else.

mukaiji• 14 years ago

Meanwhile my alma mater recently changed its logo as well...

http://www.stanforddaily.com/2012/11/15/1073130/

thisisnotatest• 14 years ago

Stanford only changed the font of the wordmark, not the S or the S-and-tree or the seal. I, for one, welcome our new wordmark. It's a pretty inoffensive change, compared to the lolfest that is the "perpetually loading" new UC logo.

Yhippa• 14 years ago

Is this logo specific to UC-Berkeley or is it for the university system as a whole overall? Based on the video it looks like each school could customize the logo to use their colors.

ek• 14 years ago

When I first heard about the "new logo", as a UC student, I was mad, as were many of my colleagues. The reason for this is that UC has a storied, dignified seal, and replacing it with a watery mod-looking thing like this new logo would be a real mistake. But deeper investigation reveals that they are looking for a logotype mostly for marketing materials and that sort of thing, and are not planning to eliminate the seal from diplomas, official correspondences, or anything like that. I don't think it's a huge deal, but as a California taxpayer and fee-paying UC student, I am somewhat disappointed that it seems our money has been spent on such poor design.

panic• 14 years ago

It actually looks pretty nice here: http://i.imgur.com/pgqun.png (frame from http://vimeo.com/53530934). I wonder why they added the weird gradient.

jahmed• 14 years ago

Thanks for posting that video. I've seen tons of complains popping up on my newsfeed and this really explains it.

perry5000• 14 years ago

It looks nice without the gradients, which make the logo look awful IMO.

brandoncapecci• 14 years ago

Probably as a preloader... http://i.imgur.com/9BeuH.gif?1?9200

nsfmc• 14 years ago

The biggest mistake this post makes is conflating the 'seal' of the uc system with its logo. And adding insult to injury, the article also completely ignores the other designed treatments for the logo.

How will the logo appear 90% of the time? Scrubbing to 1:44 seems to give the biggest clue, which indicates that the resultant 'system' is actually a series of font choices and a logo and a system for picking out colors or images which can be used within the confines of the logotype.

Scrubbing back to ~1:30 also indicates that this will also redesign http://www.universityofcalifornia.edu which will likely be a huge improvement over the existing website that appears to have been made at the height of the xhtml+prototype.js zeitgeist.

So no, Cal isn't being rebranded, the nebulous 'UC system' is, which means that the biggest consumers of this logo will be UC applicants & employees along with secondary school juniors and seniors who are receiving either fat packets or skinny envelopes with a UC logo strategically positioned in various parts. Will this logo appear on a diploma? almost certainly not. Will it appear on a paystub or employee badge? probably?

It's frustrating that most people project their fears and worries on a graphic mark but it's even more frustrating that the author ignored the actual identity's presentation.

jinushaun• 14 years ago

The article fails because the seal still remains. In fact, the seal got upgraded too. Most schools have three "logos": marketing, seal and sports. Sometimes a fourth logo. The new UC logo is for marketing purposes when talking about the entire UC system, not individual schools. The seal hasn't been replaced. Each school still has their own sports logos.

whalesalad• 14 years ago

This post reminds me of some really rad design work I saw recently on Dribbble:

http://dribbble.com/shots/822965-Onward-California

http://dribbble.com/shots/498949-Collie-For-Knee-Uh

RaSoJo• 14 years ago

underlines my fear that universities are going to face a Quick, Painful Death...if money is going to be spent on matters such as these...

jonemo• 14 years ago

While I find it a little upsetting how in the video they just push away old artwork that may be linked to many traditions, I think the post makes one big mistake: It never shows the new logo! What it does instead is a joke on the new logo that adds a low quality animation.

Showing an uglified version of it is not how you make a good case against a design.

sliverstorm3• 14 years ago

Hm. It fits nicely when paired with text that makes the association clear, and it fits in the screenshot posted by panic, but all by itself, its meaning is clear as mud.

kushagrawal• 14 years ago

The very fact that the University is thinking about the '2.0' is great. The war(see endowment, and the shrinking purpose of a University education) ahead will not be won by traditionalism, rather adapting to changing standards(Online courses, edX). Raising private funds, and a lot of other university activities require that we have a uniform identity. As a University of California student, I feel least offended and rather glad that the administration is actually taking a step in the right direction!

smsm422• 14 years ago

I think all this drive to make new logos hip is a bit misguided. It's not a rock band, it's university. It's supposed to be dignified and yes, traditional. Is it me getting old or what? I have no idea but even when I was a student belonging to something with a tradition and identity that does not change with each fashion wind would attract me more than trying to be hip. It's like a professor performing calculus lecture while signing and dancing along latest youtube hits. It may be hugely entertaining but I'm not sure one could learn calculus this way. But that's just my opinion, I wonder if anybody asked the students and the staff and what were the results?

nacho2sweet• 14 years ago

The branding re-colouring and what looks like will be a proper functioning web design I think are actually really great ideas. I mean it can be argued what is the best looking logo. I think they are taking something from the USA Today rebranding with that giant circle.

I used to work in higher education, and the web is amazingly decentralized at large universities and that means look and feel are often as well. It is very hard to police or even gain the power to police look and feel across multiple faculties, departments, and associations, so you have to provide them with a template that allows some freedom. Think of it as the tug-of-war between state and federal laws.

Often the team in charge of the top level domain will be in charge of look and feel but are given surprisingly little resources. They often can't attract top web-talent because they can't compete on wage and excitement (but can slay on benefits and working hours). They would probably have had to fought for years with higher ups to get a 1 time pool of money to do this re-branding initiative, but often after that is gone so does the upkeep, and evolution of the brand.

I was involved on a large re-branding committee almost the exact same as this. They paid big money for what was considered a goofy tag line. Students immediately graffiti'ed jokes and wrote protest articles about it. But years later with the new undergrads now graduating under it, it has stuck, and from what I can tell has been successful. Same thing will happen here, it is to attract and brand to a new generation.

Also they will still have a classic seal, that won't go away. That will be gold leaf stamped on your diploma.

JoeAltmaier• 14 years ago

Of course it 'stuck'. That's what crap does. Doesn't mean its a good idea, or helped the university or promoted anyone's interest except maybe a poor design firm got paid too much.

A logo is controversial of course. But this reductionist trend results in some awful logos, all in the interest of compressing alittle better for web pages? As bandwidth grows this becomes a pointless exercise.

chris_wot• 14 years ago

Yeah, well - it could have been worse. The UK's Office Government Commerce released a very unfortunate logo. At least this didn't happen here...

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/1901656/OGC-unveils-new-logo...

ville• 14 years ago

Reminds me of the uproar here at Aalto University over the winning entry[0] for the design contest and the final logo[1].

[0] http://www.underconsideration.com/brandnew/archives/aalto_un...

[1] http://www.underconsideration.com/brandnew/archives/follow_u...

ga0bi• 14 years ago

UC suspends use of new logo!

http://blogs.kqed.org/newsfix/2012/12/14/uc-suspends-use-of-...

The New University Of California Logo Needs To Die A Quick, Painful Death

Related Stories