8 months later, Ohio Northern's logo is ready

1/9/2001

ADA, Ohio - With 5,000 votes in and no recounts planned, Ohio Northern University announced yesterday that it has selected its first-ever logo.

The orange-black-and-white design features the word “Northern” across a script O. Underneath are the words Ohio Northern University. It is a variation of one of three designs the university asked students, faculty, and alumni to vote on in December.

“They voted on which of the three they liked best and, in the process, many wrote comments and sent me e-mails on refinements they thought we should make,” said John Willey, vice president of development and university relations. “It's largely what they voted on, but we've added what several people said they thought it needed.

The vote was 2-1 in favor of the chosen design. “We got some pretty good guidance about how to improve it,” Mr. Willey said. “Some of it was pretty simple and possibly should have been obvious to us.”

Mr. Willey said credit for the design cannot go to one person. The logo is a compilation of “three or four different sources, which we tried to integrate.” He said that was appropriate because the goal in creating a logo was to unify the varied interests of the small university.

Ohio Northern has 3,240 students in five colleges: pharmacy, law, business, engineering, and arts and sciences. The school uses a polar bear as its athletic mascot and has a formal academic seal, but it has never had a logo to use uniformly on letterheads, brochures, campus vehicles, and all the sweatshirts, coffee mugs, and other items sold at the campus bookstore.

Eight months ago a university committee sought designs from the campus community. More than 100 were submitted.