The Story
Administration Introduces New Logo
At the start of Thursday’s Board of Visitors meeting, President Nichol and Vice President of Student Affairs Sam Sadler unveiled the College’s new logo. In what the administration terms is “more of an evolution than revolution,” the College has decided to turn back to the traditional colors of green and gold, instead of the recently used green and yellow.
Rector of the BOV, Michael K. Powell said in opening, "We may no longer have our feathers, but we're still flying."
In 2006, the National Collegiate Athletic Association (NCAA) ruled the College’s feather logo to be “hostile and abusive.” After a lengthy appeal, President Nichol appointed Sadler to head a committee to redesign the school’s logo.
The committee was comprised of 14 members, including four alums, four current or recently graduated students, two faculty members (from the Art History department and the Business School), two representatives from the athletics department and two members of the administration.
Committee member and alum Connie Desaulniers (’75) drew the distinct and smaller ampersand that is incorporated in the new design.
“When we started looking at this process, we realized that in addition to the athletic logo there are a total of 12 different marks registered as symbols representing the College,” Sadler said. “So our goal was not only to comply with the NCAA ruling but pick a design that could bring consistency.”
The committee reviewed roughly 600 possible designs. They set up a website to take suggestions and received a couple hundred suggestions from the campus community. According to Sadler, the choice was narrowed down to three concepts by early summer.
Phoenix Design Works, a New York-based company, helped the committee on the design. The company has also helped Harvard, Louisiana State University and Brown design logos in the past.
“We wanted a symbol that was easily recognized and said ‘William and Mary’ like the red ‘h’ says ‘Harvard,’” said Sadler on Thursday.
President Nichol commented in a press release, saying, “I’m grateful for the important work of our logo committee --- recommending a new look and bringing a welcome consistency.” He added, “The passing months have given us no greater esteem for the NCAA’s misguided decision to prohibit the feathers in our past logo. … I’m pleased with the result.”
Nichol has called for the formulation of a stylebook in coming months to “make judgments about uniformity of application” of the logo.
Additionally, the College will immediately begin ordering athletic uniforms with the new logo. A larger circulation of W&M merchandise is expected to happen in the coming semester. Nichol has appointed Provost Geoffrey Feiss to look at implementation of the logo. The administration expects the next several months to see the replacement of business cards, stationery and publications with the new symbol.
The College’s redesigned website is also expected to feature the design. The site will be made public in the fall of 2008.
“I look forward to seeing this design early and often in a packed Zable stadium and Kaplan Arena in the coming months,” said Director of Athletics Terry Driscoll, who served on the logo committee. “This was truly an inclusive process and each member of the committee… took this responsibility very seriously.”
Don Rahtz, a professor at the Mason School of Business and expert in marketing communications, served as a member of the committee. He said they found a wide variety of symbols currently being used at the College. “Most universities, corporate, and public entities will use one or two main unifying identity symbols to represent themselves both internally and externally. When we began our review of the logos and identity symbols… we were struck by how many were in use.”
Rahtz said, “Over the years, literally dozens had been developed and used across both academic and administrative units. We were all surprised to see how many variations of the William and Mary symbols were out there.”
“While the NCAA decision might have been the catalyst, the committee realized the importance of selecting a core design that would be able to provide a focal point for university communications, as well as offer some unity in regards to its internal and external identity.”
The logo committee is now set to begin their second phase of work: deciding on whether the College should adopt a mascot and what form such a mascot might take.
At the BOV unveiling, Sam Sadler noted that “the hardest part was just going through the suggestions. Everyone who wrote us with an idea got a personal thank you back.”
Sadler said it will take some time to phase in the new design, but “Tribe is going to stay.”
DSJ Business Manager Keeley Edmonds contributed to this report.