Hey all,

After some recent questions regarding Daedalus’ recent post on the new athletics logo, I asked around and was put in touch with Miriam Tillman, Assistant Vice President of Marketing and Creative Services for UMBC. Ms. Tillman took the time to answer a few questions I sent her via email. Here are my questions followed by her answers.

1) When did your office and Athletics decide to implement a new logo, and what led to this decision? Why change it now, as opposed to last year, or next year, or some other time?

The germ for this started back in April 08 when Jim Lord, UMBC’s Creative Services design director (and a UMBC Visual Arts alum), was watching the NCAA game and was bothered by how our mascot logo looked on the scoreboard next to Georgetown’s. He began sketching some new ideas and looking into what other schools–both in our division and in our region–were doing with their logos. He found that the style had changed a lot (see his paragraph about mascot logo design trends), and as our teams were getting more attention, he wanted the logo to look as good as it could. (He’d actually done the final design on the current mascot logo a number of years back, but since he’d inherited the design from someone else at the end of the process, he wasn’t able to give it the attention he’d wanted.) Last spring Jim approached Athletics to see if they’d be interested in a new mascot logo, and they were. With regard to your question, the only timing consideration was to start soon enough to have one ready for the bookstore’s annual order in January (see #3).

2) Students were able to vote on one of three choices listed on myumbc. Where did these choices originate? Were they finalists among a bigger sample, or were they the only choices from the beginning?

The choices came from a series that evolved over time as Jim spent the summer testing a number of variations with student athletes, coaches and Athletics staff, and adapting them as he got feedback. He also displayed some options in The Commons at Homecoming, where students, faculty, staff and alums voted on their favorites and gave him direct feedback. During the course of all these meetings and conversations, some folks were interested in a realistic dog, others in something more cartoon-like. Some wanted a fierce dog, others wanted one that evoked loyalty. So he created options that responded to the range of perspectives.

3) Where did the funding for this project come from? Strictly Athletics’ budget, or more out of general marketing for UMBC as a whole?

There’s no extra funding involved, since we’re phasing this in. We deliberately timed the process to coincide with the annual order that the bookstore places in January for the next fall. In other words, this will give the bookstore designs for their vendors but not create any new expense. As Athletics buys new uniforms or orders letterhead, they’ll roll this in, but not expend additional resources any time soon.

4) Is there an expectation of the revenue generated from sales incorporating the new mascot to negate the initial cost?

Not an issue, since there’s no additional expense.

5) What affect did/does this have on student fees or athletic fees?

Ditto.

tl;dr: Jim Lord, the UMBC Creative Services guy behind this, wanted our mascot to look good since we’ve been getting more national attention. Initial options were displayed and voted on during homecoming. No additional cost because the new design will be implemented with the bookstore’s scheduled merchandise order.

Thanks again to Miriam Tillman for providing this information.