Parsons' New Logo: Bad Move
by Rob Giampietro and Kevin Smith
The renowned school of design is incorporating graffiti stylings to impart an “urban flavor.” But that approach is loaded with pitfalls
With alumni like Marc Jacobs, Tom Ford, and Donna Karan, Parsons School of Design is no stranger to the power of a great brand. And since we teach there, we're certainly no strangers to Parsons. So our interest was piqued a few months ago when a faculty e-mail announced that the school would now be known as “Parsons The New School for Design,” reflecting the fact that New School University would now be “The New School.”
Since it preserved the name “Parsons” but clarified our tie to The New School, the new title sat well with us. The e-mail went on to explain that The New School's other seven colleges would be renamed accordingly, and a new logo would be introduced. Then we saw the new logo.
Created by brand veterans Siegel & Gale, it scraps nearly every convention of academic branding. It has no shield and not even a nod to heraldry. Instead of a school color, there's a school palette. Instead of a single mark, it has several visually similar marks. And instead of well-mannered, serif capital letters, there's stenciled, spray-painted, graffiti-inspired text that Alan Siegel, speaking to AdCritic.com, describes as “hipster typography and blurry lettering designed to capture the irreverent, urban flavor of the university.” The net effect of all this misbehavior is something that feels less like a school and more like a soft drink.
Legacy Emblems
In a New York Times article about The New School's new name, our outstanding president, Bob Kerry, was asked about the recent trend of university rebranding and renaming initiatives. His answer was honest and direct: “My view is that you never argue with the customer about your name.”
What some might argue with, however, is the idea of schools as lifestyle brands designed to appeal to students seen as customers. Advertising was once considered déclassé and unsuitable to the refined realm of the academy, and if schools did any selling at all it was based not on differentiation but on a common standard of excellence (think Ivy League). As a result, school logos have traditionally drawn on shields and flags and other heraldic imagery that suggested legacy, exclusivity, and academic honor.
The New School's previous logo reflects this, albeit with a twist. Eight turning squares, one for each college, form an abstract shield. Designed in the early 1990s by Chermayeff & Geissmar — which has created identities for PBS, NBC, and Chase Manhattan Bank — the shield was paired with Matrix, one of the first computer-created typefaces. The logo was celebrated as a modern take on a traditional symbol, uniting the past and future with elegance and simplicity.
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the old logo of New School University
Source:
Businessweek
