By Evan Filandrianos, Currier Times Staff///

If you have yet to hear, Curry College has decided on a new academic logo, as part of a years-long branding endeavor. The initiative involves a collaborative effort between Curry College and Carnegie Higher Education. Carnegie’s creative team worked with our school’s work team, which consisted of members from academic affairs, communications, marketing, enrollment management, and admission.

Through internal zoom meetings featuring students, faculty, and staff, the school narrowed the vision for the new logo identity.

The college’s formal seal will remain the same. However, it will have restricted use for the office of the president and formal ceremonial events at the college.

The athletic logo featuring the overlapping “CC” in the bold purple color will remain the same.

Curry sent out a survey poll to get students’ input, featuring the final two logos in action. Light posts, merchandise, business cards, and websites featured experimental designs of the different logo’s within the survey poll.

The rebranding process aims to make the new logo more modern. The school also wants to develop a new figurehead to support the logo. The college announced that after many rounds of refining, four different logos were tested, and two came back as “most favorable” to attract high schoolers and young adults.

Nearly 80 percent of students wanted the final wordmark which features the “infinity C” as a statement; that’s almost 400 students. Not just students but the majority of staff and faculty were in favor of the winning choice; specifically, 75 percent of staff and 62 percent of faculty.

The school will continually roll out the new academic logo throughout the semester. The goal is to get prominent visual items featuring the logo, such as banners and flags, out to the public before Curry President, Jay Gonzalez, gets inaugurated on April 12th.

Do not be confused if you see both wordmarks out at the same time; it will happen soon for a short period of time.

Students on campus had various reactions.

“I do not like the new logo,” said Megan Knox, a sophomore Nursing major. “It does not represent our college and what we are as a whole.”

Some students had little to no knowledge of the logo change, however they still gave their input upon seeing the runner up compared to the option chosen.

“I don’t like it,” said Dekel Cohen, a junior Computer Science major. “Both options were bad.”

Marissa Flynn, a freshman majoring in Elementary Education, agreed.

“I don’t like either of them,” said Flynn.

Some students did have positive feelings upon seeing the new logo.

“I really like how unique and different the design is,” said Samantha Ferrara, a junior Psychology major.

Perhaps, in good time, more students may come around to liking the new logo design.

In today’s college environment, one filled with hyper-competitiveness, Curry wanted a brand that would support the school’s desire to remain competitive. To do this, the school tried to implement a brand that would help differentiate, communicate, authenticate, and emotionally resonate these efforts.

The school will continue to develop the work of the new mascot over the summer and into the fall. Many opportunities are on the horizon for community input during the process.

Liz Matzon, Vice President of Marketing and Communications, said the mascot will include some form of voting, and the goal would be to do this by January, 2025.

Students may overlook the importance of a brand, but it can recruit new students, foster a student atmosphere, retain its current students, and support fundraising opportunities.