Due to the confusion of creating a new logo last year, ASUO members are reaching out to the student body for input on a new brand direction.
ASUO Campus Outreach Coordinator Brian Allen and ASUO Programs Administrator Sinjin Carey are promoting a contest to create a new logo for the ASUO. The artist who submits the winning entry will receive a prize of $200.
Additionally, the logo selected will end up on the ASUO office window, the new ASUO website, ASUO marketing and, because of a new rule, on any flier for an event funded by the student incidental fee.
Carey said the contest will be funded out of the ASUO budget used for fundraising. The ASUO’s primary fundraisers are the fall and spring Street Faire, where the ASUO receives money in exchange for vendors holding locations along 13th Avenue.
When various ASUO members rejected last year’s proposed logo and, at the same time, the old logo was removed from the ASUO office window because of a miscommunication with facilities, the ASUO was left with a poster board as its working emblem.
Although many remember the failed sign by the mock name of “tree bomb,” because of its resemblance to a mushroom cloud, Carey said the appearance of the logo was not the only reason it didn’t pass.
“The reason it didn’t pass was because people who were trying to get the logo up didn’t get approval from everybody at the ASUO,” Carey said. “My job is to make sure everyone gives feedback.”
The logo prior to the “tree bomb” was previously painted on the ASUO office window, but when a new logo was created, someone within campus operations scraped the logo off the window before ASUO could approve a replacement, thus leaving a void.
The miscommunication was traced back to when ASUO members worked on an estimate with campus operations that ended up becoming an actual work order to take down the old logo and replace it with the “tree bomb.”
The work for feedback begins with a selection committee, which will be formed by different groups involved in the ASUO and beyond. The committee will include several ASUO senators, a couple members of the ASUO executive staff and a number of non-ASUO students who represent various constituencies on campus.
“We’ll be trying get a different spread of students who have different opinions,” Allen said.
Following the contest deadline next Monday, Nov. 22 at 5 p.m., the selection committee will watch a slideshow of all the submissions and select a top three for the rest of the ASUO to vote on. The criteria will be based on which logo best fits the “ASUO mission and goals.”
Carey and Allen will bring it for approval to everyone working in EMU Suite 4, including all ASUO senators, executive staff members, professional staff and the controllers.
Carey said the goal is to have a logo on the window by March 1.
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