Warwick rebranding sparks petition

Source: The University of Warwick

The petition, on change.org, says that Warwick’s leadership has announced they will be “changing the entire brand of the university and have already spent £80,000 in the process”.

It also claims there is “potential” that the word “university” may not feature in the new logo, adding that “it does not reflect the identity of such a high-class academic institution”.

The petition was started by Hiran Adhia, editor of Warwick student newspaper The Boar and had attracted 4,173 supporters as of the afternoon of 24 April.

Mr Adhia states that when the new brand was unveiled at a recent students’ union societies convention, the reaction “was of visible shock and displeasure from the audience, many of whom were horrified by the cost of the process”.

He adds: “A consultation was put in place, but many believed that this was not sufficient enough to capture the real mood of the brand amongst students.”

But a Warwick spokesman said: “Students were the very first people asked to take part in groups to work with designers to help create the new branding, and the number of students asked to help in that process and specifically consulted so far actually far outstrips the number of staff.”

He added: “Warwick is just beginning to celebrate its 50th anniversary which obviously sharpens everyone’s interest on both past reflection and imagining the future so there can hardly be a better time than now to take a fresh look at who we are and where we’re headed and to do so with a new brand created by and for Warwick’s own students and staff.”

The spokesman also said that the £80,000 figure “is actually what was spent on the whole process including the cost of running the focus groups and consultations. We spent £16,000 plus VAT on the actual design of the logos.”

And he said that the new logo would not replace the university’s crest, which would remain unchanged. An image of the logo provided by Warwick did contain the word “university” in its title.

john.morgan@tesglobal.com