[Vision2020] [CORRECTED] Save The Starburst

Bill London london at moscow.com
Sat Nov 18 16:19:16 PST 2006


And I was told it was a turkey butt
BL



----- Original Message ----- 
From: "Scott Dredge" <sdredge at yahoo.com>
To: "Vision 2020" <vision2020 at moscow.com>
Sent: Saturday, November 18, 2006 3:17 PM
Subject: Re: [Vision2020] [CORRECTED] Save The Starburst


> I always thought it was a sprocket.  I would have never guessed a
starburst.  Can we change it to "Save the Sprocket"?
>
> -Scott
>
> ----- Original Message ----
> From: Tom Hansen <thansen at moscow.com>
> To: Vision 2020 <vision2020 at moscow.com>
> Sent: Saturday, November 18, 2006 11:48:36 AM
> Subject: [Vision2020] [CORRECTED] Save The Starburst
>
> Save the UI starburst logo.
> http://www.savethestarburst.com
>
> Came a tribe from the north brave and bold . . .
>
> Seeya round town, Moscow.
>
> Tom Hansen
> Moscow, Idaho
>
> "Here We Have Idaho"
> http://www.tomandrodna.com/HWHI.mp3
>
> "I-D-A-H-O Idaho Idaho Go Go Go"
> http://www.tomandrodna.com/Vandals.mp3
>
>
> -----Original Message-----
>
> From: vandal-admin at uidaho.edu [mailto:vandal-admin at uidaho.edu] On Behalf
Of
> Phil Corless
> Sent: Saturday, November 18, 2006 11:04 AM
> To: vandal at uidaho.edu
> Subject: [Vandal]Save The Starburst
>
> Students protest demise of "daisy" logo at University of Idaho
> by Jesse Harlan Alderman, Associated Press
>
> To some, it's a groovy throwback to the sunny seventies. To others a
> textbook example of symmetrical design. But to most, it's the instantly
> recognizable symbol of the University of Idaho.
>
> The school's "daisy" or "starburst" logo, an interlocking circle of five
> large yellow "Us" linked by small "Is," as in "UI," or University of
Idaho,
> will soon start disappearing from the Moscow campus as part of an
> aggressive new marketing campaign.
>
> It's been erased from university letterhead and will eventually be painted
> over on the large mural outside the Kibbie Dome, the school's indoor
> football arena.
>
> The starburst icon light fixtures in the Student Union will stay, for now,
> but the relic of the "old" University of Idaho is being phased out, a
> casualty of a Madison Avenue-meets-Moscow image makeover.
>
> Jonathan Gaffney, a University of Idaho senior who spearheaded a "Save the
> Starburst" campaign said most students bristle at the school's new
> promotional materials showing photographs of hikers on mountain tops and
> Birkenstock-wearing professors.
>
> Selling the University of Idaho's prairie setting as a Rocky Mountain
> paradise is "awkward," Gaffney said, but his beef is with the school's
> decision to scrap the 36-year-old starburst.
>
> "It's the one thing that screams U of I," he said. "It's a reminder of the
> U of I as a whole to so many people - of the four or five years you spent
> here, these great college years. It's nostalgic."
>
> As of Thursday, more than 488 students, alumni and faculty members had
> signed Gaffney's online petition. He will present it to the school's
> president once he gets 500 signatures.
>
> Gaffney is amazed how many students have signed the petition on the campus
> that is annually rated among the least politically active in the country
by
> The Princeton Review.
>
> "We don't have protests or anything like that," he said. "This isn't
> something that usually happens here. Just having a petition is unusual in
> the first place and then the fact that it's gotten this response."
>
> The icon goes by many names - starburst, sunburst, daisy, snowflake and in
> Generation Y lingo, "that U of I circle thing."
>
> The logo first appeared on the school's 1970-71 staff directory,
> supplementing the traditional "Lady of Knowledge" seal of a woman stroking
> a harp and looking onto fields of grain, said university archivist Nathan
> Bender.
>
> In the 36 years since its first appearance, the school has splattered the
> icon across the campus, if not the state, on billboards, classroom trash
> cans and tuition bills.
>
> Sandra Haarsager, a University of Idaho professor of journalism and mass
> media, said the school is wrong to completely erase the type of
immediately
> recognizable trademark that most colleges and corporations spend millions
> of dollars trying to invent.
>
> "There is a real value in the kind of corporate identity we have with the
> starburst," she said.
>
> A new logo could take years to catch on, Haarsager said. While some
schools
> are easily identified by their mascot, very few people associate the
> Vandal, a bushy bearded Viking, with Idaho.
>
> But the marketers counter that the starburst has turned stale. The school
> is reeling from a 6 percent dip in enrollment, budget cuts and a scandal
> over a botched land deal in Boise. It needs a symbol that is modern, not
> retro, said Wendy Shattuck, the assistant vice president for marketing and
> strategic communications.
>
> The new ad campaign, which also changes the old university slogan "From
> Here You Can Go Anywhere" to "Open Spaces. Open Minds," uses bold font
> types that don't match the 1970s print of the UI starburst.
>
> "It was looking its age, yeah," Shattuck said. "We're also moving away
from
> referring to ourselves as UI. That could be Iowa, Illinois, Indiana -
we're
> trying to stop abbreviating ourselves."
>
> Tara Roberts, editor in chief of the university newspaper, The Argonaut,
> thinks the marketing team miscalculated the pulse of the students.
>
> A hip-hop version of the university fight song that school officials made
> available for download as a cell phone ringtone became a particular campus
> laughing stock, Roberts said.
>
> "This schizophrenia has left people wondering what UI is trying to be
> during its mid-life crisis," Roberts wrote in a recent editorial. She said
> the school should spend money on keeping students happy and updating
> academic programs; not on the fickle tinkerings of marketing.
>
> "It's funny, this branding campaign is trying to make us look more iconic,
> but it's taking away the most recognizable icon to three generations of
> students," she said. "It seems like such a trendy thing."
>
> ---
>
> On the Net: http://www.savethestarburst.com
>
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>
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