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All Hail the Old Waterloo Identity

By brian on Mar 15 (#19)

(Do you fancy white or black?)

Welcome! and If you think the new marketing logo represents nothing like us, this is the perfect spot for information about the old font of the University of Waterloo.

Fast Facts

• The old (Pre-2009) identity for the University of Waterloo is UW. It has been changed to just Waterloo starting 2010.
• The old logo is made with the Eidetic font. Solex is used for document text.
• Currently (2010), the university is using the Gotham font for its marketing and faculty wordmarks. If you see a bolder version of Gotham, it is called Gotham Bold (obviously). You can download the font here and the wordmarks here.

The Situation

Waterloo is phasing out our logo AND had removed their old logos from the graphics website.

Now what?

This post provides procedures to restore your self-esteem and/or simply lets you reminisce over the good times when Waterloo actually does the right thing.

What the Emblem Stands for 

What does the new logo mean? It, like the old logo, means nothing. Its job is to bring forth the name of the university. The old one, as a bonus, gives viewers a look of our emblem. A closer look into the old logo reveals a message, concordia cum veritate, a phrase I remembered by heart. It means "in harmony with truth" in English, and is exactly what I strive to live for. In harmony with truth. In harmony with truth. In harmony with truth.

Our motto can be seen in the Physical Activities Complex (PAC), near the gym entrance. The new logo throws the harmony bit away.

The new, bold logo creates mismatch for what the university stands for.

Why the New Logo Doesn't Work (for me, anyway)

• We suit the logo, the logo doesn't suit us - Waterloo students have long been considered innovative. In fact, we are so far ahead of the game that no other university dares to challenge our position. We stand for innovation and, whenever people see our good 'ol 50-year old logo, they will remind viewers that we have the tradition of being innovative. By changing the logo (and cheapening the look as a side effect of using sans-serif instead of a serif font), we have lost the link that connects our roots, our tradition, and our future projection.
• The new logo shows how the university works inside. They screwed up the initial design. Students surprisingly unite and revoke the design. Following the disagreement, the university pushes out three new designs and asks students to choose among the three. What?

We are meant to be able to choose not only among the three new logo designs, but should also be given the choice to not make any changes to the current logo as well.

The Materials

The Waterloo graphics department has had the old logos removed from their website. You can no longer obtain the logos. (I've also noticed a lack of keywords matches for UW old logos or Waterloo 2009 logo downloads on Google, so I came up with a plan to release information here.)

Deep within the Internet (god knows where, right?) lies a copy of Eidetic and Solex font, as well as all old Waterloo wordmarks and shield, along with an identity guide. Your quest is to download them and use them however you wish.

The Guide - Summary

Being a new-waterloo-logo rebellion doesn't mean you can use the old logo improperly, and since there was a guide for it, we shall conform to the old visual identity.

The first thing you'll notice is this:

Then comes the list of colours you should be using:

The picture above just tells you how you should be using the following colours:

• CMYK = (0,0,0,100) or RGB = (0,0,0) for the black
• CMYK = (0,11,51,0) or RGB = (255,224,144) for the yellow
• CMYK = (5,100,71,22) or RGB = (185,20,57) for the red

Other Rules

Waterloo had also laid out several rules regarding usage of the logo, which can be summed up to:

• Don't change the logo's font, opacity, proportions, structure, and location of the shield. 
• Don't put things on top of / under the logo. Rule of thumb: it should stand out.
• Don't frame it to make it stand out, either.

What about faculty logos?

They can be found on page 10 of the Visual identity PDF. It says it is page 8 on the page so make sure you look on both pages.

Will I get into trouble?

Probably - but if I can make Waterloo look less of a clown with coloured ribbons all over it, I will happily do so. You know, at least that will give me and my degree some level of credibility when I graduate.

Gotham? Six colours of bands? Marketing? New faculty logos? Really...?

ps the six new pantone colours are awesome on their own.

(0 votes)

What I've been up to lately

By brian on Mar 13 (#17)

• I rewrote the whole site. Now the system allows me to post blog entries as easily as I would normally do on other WordPress systems (just that I am not using WordPress)
• User manager is complete, along with a new registration and activation system. That means everyone can register, log in and post on this site! Awesome!
• Documentation for this system, dubbed "Sparta", is not available.

Try it and enjoy!

(2 votes)