[flamehunter]

I left that part in there because it has to be said.

No. No it did not. I for one would never have made that connection. Keep that to yourself and your professional opinion. It didn't need to be said here or anywhere publicly. You really gotta stretch your imagination to come up with that. I knew a bunch of guys in junior high who would have been right there with you.

[Jonathan Carone]

I appreciate that you didn't and wouldn't have seen that in the logo. However, in talking to multiple people today about this seal, it was brought up in every conversation. This issue has come up with many logos in recent years (often times in sports) and is something that should always be considered when designing logos.

[flamehunter]

Did you bring it up in all those conversations too? cause no one else brought it up here. You do what you have to but I lost a little respect for you today.

[Jonathan Carone]

I wouldn't have brought it up here if it was something only I noticed. Some on this board even brought it up unprovoked in private conversation. If you choose to respect me less because I brought that view into a public conversation then that's your right. I'd just prefer to not have that representing the school I have two degrees from.

[Purple Haize]

The word stretch was just used. And erection.

[Yacht Rock]

For what it's worth when I first saw the logo, I thought, "Well we are really doubling down on the tower looking like an erection."

And when I showed the logo to others, that was their first response, unprompted.

[flamehunter]

I guess I'm just an old fashioned prude. That's OK. Y'all have fun with it.

[alabama24]

Out of curiosity... What do you think is a "traditional Christian cross"?

Something like this.

https://images.search.yahoo.com/search/ ... tion=click

It is the proportions of the one in the seal that make it almost unrecognizable. The cross beam almost in the middle of the upright, much thicker, and also a different color.

You do realize, don't you, that you simply gave me a link to a search for "traditional Protestant Cross" (without the typo).

It is instructive that you included "Protestant". There are many designs much older.

[alabama24]

I guess I'm just an old fashioned prude. That's OK. Y'all have fun with it.

I don't agree on this one, but their concerns aren't unfounded and aren't out of the blue. The original concept designs, as shown in the N&A were much more, well, you know... And people from the community were commenting on it online & on the radio.

Some people think that any tower would look like that.

[Jonathan Carone]

I guess I'm just an old fashioned prude. That's OK. Y'all have fun with it.

No one said you're a prude. If you didn't see it then awesome. Many people, prudes included, will see it though.

[Purple Haize]

I guess I'm just an old fashioned prude. That's OK. Y'all have fun with it.

'Are we not doing phrasing anymore?' - Sterling Archer

[olldflame]

The octagon serves no purpose IMHO. At this point, who cares that one of the former church sanctuaries was shaped like that because it was patterned after Poplar Forest? OK, obviously someone does, and I''m going to take a wild guess and say his Initials are JLFJR. Remove it, make the shield a tiny bit bigger, continue the base of the tower beyond the bible to the bottom of the shield, move the 1971 closer to the top and drop the liberty bell down to the open spot across from the flame. IMHO that would clean it up w/o totally redesigning it. I also think the tower itself is a bit busy, but I'm afraid anything you did to simplify it would make it look more.......

[BJWilliams]

I guess I'm just an old fashioned prude. That's OK. Y'all have fun with it.

No one said you're a prude. If you didn't see it then awesome. Many people, prudes included, will see it though.

I must be in the minority because I didn't notice any resemblance to a certain part of the male anatomy even after you made your ill conceived comparison (and struck through it)

[TH Spangler]

I guess I'm just an old fashioned prude. That's OK. Y'all have fun with it.

No one said you're a prude. If you didn't see it then awesome. Many people, prudes included, will see it though.

I must be in the minority because I didn't notice any resemblance to a certain part of the male anatomy even after you made your ill conceived comparison (and struck through it)

Super Jon is back!

[Jonathan Carone]

Hopefully SuperJon is still dead. That dude needed to go a long time ago.

[Purple Haize]

I thought it looked penisy

[TH Spangler]

I thought it looked penisy

The seal or the poster?

[olldflame]

I thought it looked penisy

Come on Purple. As Potentate of the Dark Side and FFs chief advocate for "phrasing", you should be able to do better than that. There is a perfectly legitimate academic term for this, and for some reason no one wants to use it.

[Purple Haize]

I thought it looked penisy

Come on Purple. As Potentate of the Dark Side and FFs chief advocate for "phrasing", you should be able to do better than that. There is a perfectly legitimate academic term for this, and for some reason no one wants to use it.

Penial?

[rogers3]

I thought it looked penisy

Come on Purple. As Potentate of the Dark Side and FFs chief advocate for "phrasing", you should be able to do better than that. There is a perfectly legitimate academic term for this, and for some reason no one wants to use it.

Penial?

Penile, maybe. Im not fond of the new design, either.

[LUconn]

I think it's funny that our symbolic structure is a building we have no relation with anymore, and we've switched to a building that doesn't exist yet.

[lynchburgwildcats]

I think I've had enough time to look at it and process it to be able to critique things in a way that isn't mean spirited. If I cross that line, I apologize.

This seal reeks of decision makers influencing the design in ways that negatively influenced it. They were out of their sphere of knowledge and insisted on things that make the design look cheap and/or unrefined. This is not the fault of the designers. If we had access to their rough drafts and other concepts, I can almost guarantee there would be something that looks incredible that we'd all be proud of.

What happens in situations like this is the leadership has a few ideas they'd like incorporated into the design. The designer then picks out a few of those ideas and develops concepts based around pieces of what the leadership desired. Once presented with the concepts, the leadership insists that they'd like all of their ideas incorporated into the design and that they weren't ideas but rather specific directives.

Because of this, we're left with a university seal that is extremely busy. We put things on there that represent the school but instead of developing an overall look and feel that represented the school as a whole, we included nine (9!!!) minor items into the seal. That's way too much and it cheapens the look.

Personal example of high-level leaders lacking design skills: I developed a logo for a doctor who was opening a new practice. His original brief asked for a family, mountains, and a Jesus fish all along with the name of the practice. I knew this would look horrible but developed a concept for him to see. Along with that, I also created other concepts so he'd know what I thought would best represent his vision. Luckily for him (and my portfolio), he listened to me (the design professional). He trusted I knew how to do my job better than he did.

In the case of this seal, our leadership felt they were better designers than the designers they hired to do the project. Because of that, we're left with a seal that includes a tower that looks like a penis erecting out of the Bible and flames that look like, well, you get the idea replaces nostalgic and bad with just bad.

Similar to how a web design can go straight to hell...
http://theoatmeal.com/comics/design_hell

[lynchburgwildcats]

Definitely resembles the male anatomy.

[ALUmnus]

Tower looks stupid, no matter what you compare it too. The Liberty Bell? What? Why not throw in the Statue of LIBERTY as well?

[Purple Haize]

Towers and Christianity have had a dubious relationship since Genesis