As the year 2010 and a new semester began, visitors to the St. Michael’s College Web site might have noticed something a little different. The old “bell tower” logo was replaced by a new logo.

New year, New look

An e-mail survey with three choices was sent out to students, faculty, staff and alumni. The new version of the logo was soon added to every aspect of the college’s marketing materials.
           
The process of changing the logo began last summer when the marketing office decided to move forward with its image development intitative and wanted a new, more modern look for the logo, Buff Lindau, director of marketing and communications said.

After conducting a study of alumni, prospective and current students, guidance counselors and staff of how St. Michael’s College is perceived. The logo was the easiest change to make, Lindau said.

“The old logo had served us for many decades and was very elegant but a little old fashioned feeling,” Lindau said.

The marketing office asked a consultant for suggestions on refreshing the logo. They updated the “bell tower” type and added a shield, resembling the same shield that is carved on the back of Jeanmarie facing Route 16 and features a Trajan font -an ancient letter style used on Roman buildings, Lindau said.

New business cards and materials display the new St. Michael's logo ( Photo by Catherine Watt)

“The new logo has both an elegant but a more streamline contemporary feel and it works in our marketing materials,” Lindau said.

After focus groups and presentations of the first ideas from the marketing group, the St. Michael's marketing office came to Graphic Designer Becky Danaher with about eight options which she then revised the final selections to make them look a little more,  “St. Michael’s” Danaher said.

After receiving the ideas from the marketing firm, there were two different ideas for the new bell tower and she took pieces of logo one and pieces of logo three until she came up with something that both herself and the marketing office enjoyed, Danaher said.

Another e-mail survey was sent out to alumni, faculty, staff and students with the top three choices generating a number of responses from both alumni and students, Lindau said.

“The e-mail survey was sent out on Nov. 11 and by Nov. 19. There were 733 alumni responses generating enough interest and care to speak about the college to want to weigh in on it,” Lindau said.

The marketing office is moving quickly to implement the new logo into their marketing materials, the logo has been sighted on the Web site, new business cards, the e-newsletter and information and materials that get sent out to alumni, Lindau said.

Future plans for the new logo include presenting it on new banners throughout the college by commencement and into new admissions materials for prospective students entering in the year 2011.

Cost and time to change it

This new logo means changes will need to be made to signs around campus, although this is not an immediate agenda item, Lindau said. Athletics will not be affected by this new logo change since the ‘knight” logo is not changing.

Many of the changes of the logo will be at no additional cost such as the Web site and new business cards which are being done internally by staff on campus.  The creation of the logo in itself was tied into the imaging development study and it was part of the overall cost of all the surveys that was done and the data that was collected. The banners will cost some more money but will be part of the operating costs and part of the up keep of campus, Lindau said.

There were also no additional costs for printing the materials, George Goldsworthy, director of printing and mailing services said.

“We are moving forward with everything that has the new logo on it so there were no additional costs because it is going on all new materials instead of replacing additional materials,” he said.

Making it green

Goldsworthy also said the school is taking a green approach towards getting the logo out there.

“We didn’t want everyone to throw out materials with the old “bell tower” logo on it,” Goldsworthy said. “We are encouraging people to have a green transition instead of throwing everything away with the old logo,” Goldsworthy said.

As materials with the old bell tower logo run out, they will soon be printing out more things with the new logo on it, he said.

Goldsworthy had an advisory role in how they presented the logo on all sorts of materials with certain limitations and how they could produce it on to paper.

There were some challenges associated with making a completely new logo, Goldsworthy said.

Since the new logo has two colors, purple and gold right next to each other, presenting the two colors together was a challenge because the purple ink needs to be laid perfectly inside the tight area called the trap, putting the two colors next to each other, Goldsworthy said.

“We are creating our press plates digitally with a new machine and we can solve the problem but every time we do it will be present some challenges,” he said.

Danaher said one of the problems with the old logo was the detai.When it's printed on a large document- all the little detailed aspects of the "bell tower" logo were not very print friendly.

Lindau is excited about the new logo and said it is moving the college in a more modern direction.

“A logo is not a huge deal but it felt like a nice big step to take into moving forward with our marketing campaign,” she said.