Memorial University no longer "of Newfoundland"

Updated

Arrrggghhh, this pisses me off. The Memorial University of Newfoundland (my alma matter) has created a new logo for their marketing campaigns, which doesn't include the province name!

It seems so silly to simply promote "Memorial University" - Newfoundlanders will know where it is, but most people across Canada (and certainly internationally) will have no idea where the school is, or who it is a memorial to. Add that to the fact that there are about a half dozen other Memorial Universities in North America (Florida Memorial University, Lincoln Memorial University, etc.)... this just doesn't seem to be an effective branding strategy.

The old logo:
The new logo:

While the official name of the university remains "Memorial University of Newfoundland", this logo will be used to promote the school. I don't like the new logo all that much, but I realize that graphics change, and it's not that big a deal to me. I really think "Newfoundland" should remain in the logo and marketing materials though.

Edit: My suggestion for changes to the logo - just add "of Newfoundland" to the bottom of the logo, in the same grey lettering, like this:


The university's name is a subject of debate for some people too, from what I understand. Some advocate adding "and Labrador" to reflect the province's recent name change, while others think it should remain simply "Memorial University of Newfoundland", because the school was named as a memorial to those who died serving Newfoundland in WWI and WWII, before entering Canada.

If you would like to voice your opinion on the new logo, you can email the university president Axel Meisen at munpres@mun.ca, and the university's marketing and communications group at marcomm@mun.ca.


Update: Read Memorial University no longer "of Newfoundland", Part II (June 5, 2006)

Cove Blogger has written a great post about the new logo, along with some background information on the name change issue.

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5 comments:

  1. Everybody is trying to make logos shorter and punchier -- hence the rise in acronyms.

    I guess we should be glad they just didn't rename it to "MU". :-)

     
  2. Not officially.

    Yet, anyways.

     
  3. I'm not lovin' the logo. So I checked out MUN's website, and it says there that the name hasn't changed. It's still Memorial University of Newfoundland, and that the logo is only for ads and promotional stuff. The crest or coat of arms or whatever is still used for degrees, remembrance day, and ceremonies.

    That old crest (one guy's opinion) is pretty ugly and looks like every other university in, like, the world. It's got all kinds of crap all over it that I'm sure means something, but I can't pick it out. So I don't like the new logo much, but I do like that it's simple anyway. And it's still burgundy - at least they didn't make it like sea blue or something stupid like that.

    There's a video on the MUN site too. I watched it and liked it - it's a bit grainy, but I got the picture. They are definitely not hiding that MUN is in Newfoundland. It made me feel sort of proud. There's some prof climbing a mountain (she's gonna climb everest) and a guy on Signal Hill, and a bunch of other stuff.

    It's hard to judge the logo naked (well I'm not naked - I mean just looking at a logo by itself). I gotta think they'll be using Newfoundland stuff in their ads. Hey, MUN guys, make sure to use Newfoundland pictures in your ads, will ya?! I'll send an email.

     
  4. I agree, I hope they'll be using Newfoundland pictures in their ads, and that's great, but I still think the location in the logo is important.

    And maybe I'm just cranky, but I wouldn't want to wear a t-shirt or have a backpack that just said "Memorial University", without Newfoundland written on it.

    They must have known that this issue would tick some people off, and it's not like it would ruin the new logo to include "of Newfoundland" in small grey letters at the bottom. I was curious to know how it would look, so I edited their image and added it to this post. The image URL is:
    http://photos1.blogger.com/blogger/4708/191/1600/munlogo-new-edit.0.gif

    It's good to get people talking about the pros and cons though. :)

     
  5. Does this mean this Summer I'm going to be visiting MU instead of MUN? :-(

    I don't like the scraggledy purple bit, what's up with that?