BY Armin

Kwantum Leap

From the Department of No Way I Would Have Ever Known Without Someone On The Inside Filling Me In comes this tale of identity change from the deepest corners of Canada. To add to the intrigue, our informant wishes to remain anonymous.

I am a fan of the blog and enjoyed your pieces on Portland State University and Rutgers, so I thought this might be of interest: Kwantlen University College — a degree-granting college in British Columbia, Canada, with campuses in and around the suburbs of Vancouver — recently went through a redesign that took the school away from moody blues and purples to a bolder red, while also dropping the original classic crest (except for use in more formal applications) to primarily use the wordmark knocked out of red, like so. This was fine enough, and hardly offensive, if not a little bland. However, this press release arrived in everyone’s mailboxes this morning:

“Over the past few years many people have expressed disappointment over the loss of detail when our official coat of arms is reduced to business card, letterhead and other small applications. We have developed a new simplified version which uses our vibrant Kwantlen red, along with three key elements from Kwantlen’s coat of arms: our salmon (the Kwantlen First Nation’s symbol of new life), our river, and our book (the universal symbol of learning). The typeface remains the same - as designed by retired faculty member Stu Richardson. I presented my first business card bearing the simplified crest to Kwantlen First Nation Chief Marilyn Gabriel during the Kwantlen People’s ‘First Salmon’ ceremony on the reserve last Friday and she was very pleased with it. Peter Chevrier and his Marketing colleagues have succeeded in creating a crisp and simple design that is true to Kwantlen FN traditions and Kwantlen UC traditions. This new simplified version of our shield will be used in many day-to-day applications and our official coat of arms will continue to be used on our credentials, our seal and other legal and ceremonial documents. Expect to see our new simplified shield slowly introduced on business cards and stationery as existing stocks run out.”

Detail of the crests

After stating the facts, our information now goes into his personal opinion:

“Crisp and simple?! I can’t tell what’s going on inside that fish and I’m looking at a gigantic version on my high resolution computer monitor! The image they sent is about twice the size of a business card, and that’s if the logo was the entire width from edge-to-edge. Also, why does the book look like it was drawn with a huge felt marker while the salmon looks like it was traced with a mechanical pencil? And since when does crisp and simple mean introducing a grey gradient to the background that doesn’t even gradiate properly? Also, I understand that someone squished a spider in the middle of the book, but couldn’t they have turned the page of our universal symbol of learning before immortalizing it in the logo? Lastly, anyone who has ever seen First Nation artwork knows how graphic it is, and this is not graphic, it’s an insult. Thank you for your time.”

No, thank you.

\n\nFrom the Department of No Way I Would Have Ever Known Without Someone On The Inside Filling Me In comes this tale of identity change from the deepest corners of Canada. To add to the intrigue, our informant wishes to remain anonymous.

Many thanks to our ADV @ UnderConsideration Partners