Updated September 22, 2007, to include an image of the current UMR wordmark for comparison.
At long last, after weeks of forums, surveys, focus groups and discussion, we have a logo for Missouri University of Science and Technology.
This will replace the current UMR wordmark, shown below.
The official news release follows.
Campus picks “S&T” logo to go with new name
ROLLA, Mo. – The University of Missouri-Rolla, which becomes Missouri University of Science and Technology on Jan. 1, has picked a new logo to go with the new name.
The university unveiled its“Missouri S&T” logo today on a weblog created to share information about the name change with students, alumni, faculty, staff and the public. The graphic, in a serif font known as Berkeley, features a unique pickaxe symbol in the ampersand – a nod to the university’s founding as the University of Missouri School of Mines and Metallurgy – and a bold, dominant “S&T’ to emphasize the campus’ mission as a technological research university.
“Since our founding in 1870 as the first technological school west of the Mississippi River, our university has been a leader in technological innovation,” says UMR Chancellor John F. Carney III. “The new logo symbolizes our heritage as one of the nation’s leading technological research institutions - a heritage and a distinction we will carry forth into the future as Missouri S&T.”
Last fall, Carney suggested the university community explore the idea of a name change to better define its standing as a technological research university. “The University of Missouri-Rolla is unique among the four University of Missouri campuses because of our focus as a technological research university,” Carney said at the time. “We believe a more distinctive name would afford UMR several advantages in recruiting students on a national level.”
The nine-member UM Board of Curators unanimously approved the name change to Missouri S&T last April.
The selection of the Missouri S&T word mark is the result of a process that began soon after the curators’ decision. Early prototypes of a logo were unveiled in July and shared with students, faculty, staff and alumni in open forums on campus, in St. Louis and on the university’s “Name Change Conversations” weblog (namechange.mst.edu).
As part of the process, the university solicited feedback on those preliminary versions through surveys and received 772 responses – 438 from the online survey and 334 from the forums on campus and in St. Louis, which is home to about 36 percent of UMR’s 49,000 alumni. The university also received feedback via email and weblog comments, and worked with SimpsonScarborough, a higher education marketing firm based in Washington, D.C., to conduct follow-up focus group research with alumni and prospective students.
The word mark was developed by Creative Communication Associates (CCA) of Albany, N.Y. CCA and SimpsonScarborough are working with UMR to coordinate the name change.
UMR’s brand identity team – a committee of students, alumni, faculty and staff – is responsible for developing branding and marketing strategies for the campus as it adopts its new name.
The team is working with SimpsonScarborough and CCA to develop guidelines for the logo’s usage, including the application of the school colors (silver and gold) and a third color (green), which is associated with the school due to its annual celebration of St. Patrick, the university’s “patron saint of engineers.”
More details about the logo's usage will be in an updated FAQ, to be published on Tuesday.
Wow. Leave my hammers, gear and chain alone for 5 seconds and look at how lame it becomes. The ampersand-pickaxe, how creative. Sure to stand the test of time for at least a year or so.
In all honesty, I genuinely hope that this logo did not cost a whole lot. OH, thats RIGHT: The whole namechange is only going to cost 200k... And privately funded from donations... (our private donations)...
Guess you have to save money somewhere to meet the 200k goal.
Viva! Viva la Revolucion! GO MUSTARD! (MUST and Related Disciplines)
It sure does look like UMR is going to a tech school.
Are we competing against DeVry and ITT, now?
Alright, I have to admit... ...I actually like the logo for the most part. I still don't agree with the name change or the "reasoning" behind it, and Missouri S&T definitely wouldn't have been my first choice. But if that's what we have to work with, then the logo works. Sure, it might not look like much, but you can't really expect logo design to end global hunger or initiate world peace.
As in my previous comments, though, I still find it curious that UMR is striving to separate itself from the "University of Missouri" (the first of the "four" major points used to proposed the name change), yet "Missouri" is still at the top in bold letters. I guess it's hard to get away from it, since UMR is now and probably will ever be (no matter what it's called) part of the University of Missouri system.
Now that the name change seems to be moving forward, I'd be interested in learning what other components of UMR's plan to become a top-5 technological university have been implemented. Only 2+ years to go...
I certainly understand the timeline that the committee was given to develop the logo, but as an alum, I am disappointed that there is so little reference to the University's heritage. Can't we have a little gear outline around this? :) Despite that, this is a huge step forward from the soulless patch.
I don't mind the big S & T with the mining allusion, but for the rest of it are we really moving back to serifed fonts? If you want to be communicating "future" with science and technology, you really want sans-serif or at least something more modern than Berkeley. I thought the old UMR wordmark got that very right. This is more backward-looking.
This is pathetic. I was not been in favor of a name change to start with but figured I would give it a chance if a decent name could be developed. Like the last time I saw a push for this 8-10 years ago, none of the options presented, including the selected MUST seemed to be any sort of improvement over UMR. I guess I can be proud that it's not Mo-Tech.
Then to add insult to injury this excuse for a logo was selected?!?! What is distinguishing and differentiating about that? Where is the color? Where is the gear, hammer, chisel, or anything else that could tie the school to its history or at least make it appealing to look at? Other than a little manipulation to the ampersand, I could have created this logo in MSWord, but I would have picked a better font.
On the bigger picture PR/branding front, why is UMR buying ads in national publications like NSPE's PE magazine with the UMR name when the name change is coming?
The powers that be behind the whole name change have really dropped the ball. They took a marginal concept at best and made the worst of it. I could have been persuaded to think it was a good idea, but nothing that has been done has helped sell me on it. And this sophomoric effort is supposed to somehow appeal to a nationwide base of media savvy and leary teenagers who are trying to decide where they want to go to school?
While I do not believe the choice school to attend should be based on a name and logo but rather quality and reputation (which is often associated with a longstanding name), it seems that the branding image of a name and logo are important enough to some to make a change. In that case, the least that could be done is have a name and logo developed that aren't immediately jokes (GO MUSTARD! is hilarious) or a reason to dismiss a school upon a cursory review of its literature.
If I was the prototypical east coast high school student that this whole effort seems to be aimed at (because midwestern students who know what UMR is don't count), I would immediately discount MUST as something like Devry or ITT without a good graphics department and definitely not think of MIT. I have seen t-shirt designs from Key Sport that would make better logos.
If name and logo are the deciding factors, engineering enrollment at Mizzou should be up in the coming years.
During logo design, there were several fonts and designs covered. The logo that was picked was done so after several forums and showings of different brands, and after several surveys were taken on the designs most liked, most representative, and what things students and faculty might have thought could improve the design.
I also realize the concern with a plain design. This design has to be recreated and used all throughout campus. There are no gears or eccentric backgrounds because it would more than double the strife of its reproduction in all of its uses. You want a main brand to be plain and simple. This is the most professional way to start off with a logo in any use and it leaves room for creativity in a campus full of engineers.
I am very happy with the new logo. If you compare it with the old one in a draft brand state like the one posted now, we would just have a big M S&T in bold black letters. I believe the new logo can go a long way and we'll see some neat design interpretations all throughout campus.
(Moderator's note: this post has been edited to remove this commenter's derogatory views toward a previously posted comment.)
Did this return to the 1870's come back without us knowing it? I mean if you want to return to the days of MSM's founding, FINE, but I guarantee they had better fonts and graphics even back then. Heck, the Missouri-Miner has better fonts.
Sounds like they really are trying to do the whole change for under 200k. By going cheap.
Its an insult really...
The Havener center has at least two bronze cog, hammer and chain logo's embedded in the floor. You really want this CRAP in bronze in the middle of the floor of the 'crown jewel' of campus? The Met department would die if they were asked to produce something so lame.
"If you want to be communicating "future" with science and technology, you really want sans-serif or at least something more modern than Berkeley. I thought the old UMR wordmark got that very right. This is more backward-looking."
+1. This logo looks like something from the early to mid '90's. I'm no graphic designer, but I know a sophomoric attempt at a logo when I see one. It is especially dissapointing when the university paid a company to develop a logo. I'm willing to bet some current students could have developed something better.
Sure, I understand it has to be easy to reproduce, but these days, so long as its in a good reproducable electronic format and not 3,000 different colors, it can be done easily.
I like the new logo. I was never fond of the gear with hammer and chain as it was way too busy and no longer reflected the emphasis of the institution. This new logo is simple and distinctive. It is easy to read but still portrays some of the unique heritage of this institution. I do agree that the font could have been better. It is too "old fashioned" and traditional looking. I would have prefered a more modern and forward looking font.
Pretty weak!
What's next? A mythical bird to replace old Joe?
The logo seems a little "wordy", redundant.
'S&T' and 'Science and Technology' in the same logo?
Was never a fan of the name change, or any of the draft logos. My previous comments on other boards when they were playing with the 4 drafts remains the same. I could have developed this with the Word Art feature in Microsoft Word.
On the name change: Now that we are going to a third name, I have to tell people in industry that aren't familiar with universities in Missouri, "I went to the University of Missouri-Rolla, which I guess is now called Missouri S&T University of Science and Technology... You probably know it better as the Missouri School of Mines." People seem to have more name recognition with MSM. Especially all the higher level bosses that are doing all the hiring and considering which schools to visit for career fair.
The new logo is not just lame, it's embarrasing!
Kudos! This is a usable, reproduceable logo. It is strong, clean, and will differentiate us from the place 90 miles up the road.
Please confirm that the gear, chain, and hammers will still be kept around campus; just as it is today while we use the "UMR" logo. It's not going away. It is just a design meant primarily for students and alumni.
The logo selected is for general reproduction and the public.
I feel that this whole name change is an embarassment to the university. The name, no matter how much the administrators seem to like it, does not sound distinguished. In fact, it sounds generic. It also slights the humanities departments and makes our campus seem narrow-minded. As for the logo, the new one is certainly better than the rectangular "UMR" box, but I think we could have paid a high school student a lot less money to come up with the idea and we probably would have gotten a more creative design. I agree with many of the other posts in that the old gearwheel design was excellent and looked professional. As a student, I also do not appreciate how the logo unveiling first took place off campus. Additionally, I thought the campus has been bragging every year with how their enrollment is up then laments over decreased funding. I have never understood the rationale behind spending so much money to change the name in order to draw in more students when obviously people are hearing about our campus and coming here from elsewhere. I think we would have more funding if we'd go to the roots of the problems and cut a lot of the wasteful spending that happens on this campus.
Awful. Simply awful. I am an alumni of the University, and this little stunt definitely makes me think twice about any kind of monetary donation.
When I left UMR it seemed that many of the buildings needed work, the computer labs were outdated (Civil, HSS), and some of the classrooms looked like they were straight out of the 60s.
This allocation of money seems like a total waste to me. Take a good name, a good logo, throw those away, fire up mspaint and make yourself a new one.
I won't be changing UMR to MUST on my resume any time soon.
I was told by my department not to change UMR to MUST on my resume just because no one will know what MUST is for the next 5-10 years.
I agree the logo is lousy. But so is the name change.
I will NEVER donate money back to the University again after all of this.
In case anyone has not noticed - THIS IS A RIP-OFF OF THE TEXAS A&M LOGO!!!
Why is our administration so determined to change our university to be like other schools?!?!? Remember when they wanted to change it to Mo-Institute of Technology? (MIT) Geez wouldn’t that have been nice. Then we could steal the idea for our initials AND our logo from other universities.
Does our chancellor have such a low opinion of our school that he insists on coping other university’s ideas? -- I think so!
FYI: http://tamusystem.tamu.edu/
The name change was pointless and this 'logo' is absolutely horrid...Someone trying to leave a 'legacy' by changing the name?
This is rediculous. I'm frankly appalled that there wasn't a design competition on campus. You could have awarded the winning entry as much as $1000 and still gotten a workable, scalable, reproducible logo much, MUCH cheaper than hiring a consulting firm to play with Illustrator for a few hours.
Don't think it would have worked? Look at the St. Pat's sweatshirt logos for the past, I dunno, 10, 20 years. All of them creatively done. All look rather professional. And ALL of them were created by students.
The school is cleaning my house on tuition money and squandering it on unimportant matters such as this. I'm ashamed to be a part of this.
You'll be seeing no alumni donations from me.
I never was for the change of name. It is like UMR was part of my personal history life. But now it is gone. I don't believe I ever feel like Missouri S&T guy.
I attended a professional society meeting today and during a discussion about UMR, I was asked about the name change. I mentioned that the new name of the university would be Missouri University of Science and Technology. The response back was "MUST?" I did correct them that it is Missouri S&T but found it humorous that "MUST" was someone else's first response. The other comment that was made was that the name made the university sound like an ITT Tech knock-off and when would we start offering trade school type classes.
As for the new logo, I did not realize that there was an anvil attached to the ampersand until I read it in this blog -- I just thought it was a really bad font.
All I can say is from this point forward the only way this university will receive money from me is if a professional society scholarship recipient decides to attend this place.
I miss the gear. I could see going from UMR to MST--or MSTU with the gear boarder--but to leave ourselves open to being distinguished alumni of MUST....That's bad. The hook on the ampersand can definitly be missed and not understood. (I wouldn't have caught on without an explanation.) I feel like we're leaving all our heritage behind--which is needed as much as moving forward. After all, in engineering, experience is everything!
Is this in stone? Can we try again?
"As for the new logo, I did not realize that there was an anvil attached to the ampersand until I read it in this blog -- I just thought it was a really bad font."
That's funny. When I first saw it, I couldn't understand why there was an umbrella in the logo.
First MUST (or MUSTARD if you prefer) and now this...how sad.
What kind of quality students are you going for when the actual logo seems to spell out what S&T stands for? From the first glance at the logo, that is what it told me..."Hey S&T stands for Science and Technology. I remember in high school when I went to select my class ring, you get to choose your symbol. Since I was going to be an engineer, I chose the universal symbols to represent what I wanted to become and what I became...and that was a cog, Sigma, and the integration symbol.
I guess one of the new moto's should be "Educating Tomorrow's Followers" instead of "Educating Tomorrow's Leaders" especially since the new name with S&T is so similar to other school names that it does not emulate the moto. I agree also with Jared, this is a rip off of A&M.
Is it too late to file a serious petition to stop the name change and the logo and go back to UMR or even MSM...I am sure the donations will flood in to cover the lost 200k...
I went to a Cardinals game a few days ago where I met an alumni who wasn't particularly thrilled about the logo or the whole name change idea. He suggested that while we're busy renaming everything we can start calling Joe Miner 'Musty Joe', or something similar. On a related note, I can't help but notice how this logo bears little to no resemblance of the ones they sent everyone over the summer to be voted on by students and alumni, and somehow ended up looking what in my opinion is far worse than those four. This whole name changing business seems to me like its taking something tried, tested, and dependable and is substituting it with something that is immediately the butt of jokes campuswide, if it even stops there.