The Mason community reacts to new logo

BY BRANDYN FRAGOSA, SENIOR NEWS REPORTER

Editor’s Note: The full statements from Vice President and Chief Brand Officer Paul Allvin and Students Against Logo Tragedy to Fourth Estate can be viewed below.

The article has been updated for clarity.

Following the reveal of George Mason University’s new logo, the Mason community reacted with a mixed reception. 

Vice President and Chief Brand Officer Paul Allvin, University President Dr. Gregory Washington and Assistant Vice President and Director of Intercollegiate Athletics Marvin Lewis explain the meaning behind the logo change.

The new Mason logo is revealed to the university community

On April 25, the Office of University Branding revealed the new Mason logo to “begin the next leg of our journey to overhaul and modernize George Mason University’s brand identity.”

The logo includes a modernized yellow G and M outlined in green. “The new look features clean lines and open ends, symbolizing multiple entry points and pathways to success,” Mason said in an article.

“The ‘GM’ monogram distinguishes the university as the world’s only university to use those initials in its logo and recognizes that the broader community commonly refers to the university as ‘George Mason,’ not just ‘Mason’ and no longer ‘GMU,’” Mason said.

Ologie, a branding and marketing agency in Columbus, Ohio, helped to create the logo.

In a post on X, Ologie said, “We were honored to partner with GMU to establish this work, the architecture strategy, and the visual platform as part of their three-year-long comprehensive rebrand.”

The plan to create a new logo started as an ongoing project in 2021.

However, on Tuesday, April 23, the Mason Cable Network (MCN), revealed a black-and-white rendering of the new logo, two days earlier than Mason’s scheduled reveal, on a live taping of their show.

MCN retrieved the logo from the United States Patent and Trademark Office, which states that the logo had been trademarked since Mar. 8, 2024. 

Vice President and Chief Brand Officer Paul Allvin said that the Office of University Branding was unaware of MCN’s plan to reveal the new George Mason logo on April 23.

“We advised them that the image they had was not accurate – it appears it was taken from our trademark filing – so it caused a lot of needless frustration to the public because they were reacting all day to a black-and-white rendering of part of the logo, with no context or explanation,” Allvin said.

Allvin added, “Our planning has always called for a Thursday public release and a Friday focus on the university. Today [April 25] we just focused more on social media and news outlets. 

Tomorrow [April 26] we will turn our focus inward, with merchandise debuting in the bookstore and a meeting with communications and marketing staffers from around the university to orient them on the new brand guides.” 

Paul Allvin and Athletics Director Marvin Lewis led the new logo change

According to an article by Scott Allen from the Washington Post, Allvin worked alongside Assistant Vice President and Director of Intercollegiate Athletics Marvin Lewis in creating the new logo. 

“Lewis had experience with redesigns at several of his previous stops, including Brown [University], where he led a brand and visual identity refresh in 2022,” Allvin said in the article.

In a conversation between Lewis and Allen, Lewis said in the article, “This is an opportunity to truly galvanize and unify the campus community… Instead of athletics having a separate identity, I felt like it was imperative for us to maintain the university’s identity.”

President Dr. Gregory Washington released a letter the day of the official reveal stating that the Mason Athletic Department was involved in the logo change.

“The new logo system unifies the university under a single look, which now includes athletics,” Dr. Washington said.

Allvin added to Fourth Estate, “It was simply a strategic decision made in collaboration with Intercollegiate Athletics. [Branding’s] best practice at leading universities is to operate under a unified logo so you don’t present competing symbols to the public…

We simply needed to arrive at a design that met both the more academic/administrative needs and the needs of athletics.”

Initial reactions to the new logo

MCN posted on Instagram on April 23 showcasing the new logo, which received 95 comments of mixed feedback from the Mason community as of April 28.

On April 24, MCN Alum Tyler Byrum confirmed on X that the logo would replace Mason’s Athletic Department shooting star-featured logo, with his tweet collecting 334,200 views, 74 comments, 16 reposts and 245 quotes as of April 28, featuring thoughts on the new design.

Allvin replied to various tweets critiquing the logo, referring to MCN’s reveal as an “erroneous leak from trademark filings” on several occasions, directing users to read Mason’s article about the logo reveal.

In response to the reactions to the logo, Dr. Washington said in his letter, “New logos are often an acquired taste—it’s human nature to view changes like these with a certain amount of reluctance. I encourage everyone to give yourselves time to acclimate to this new look… 

It maintains our historic green and gold colors, but in bolder, more confident hues. And its design tells the story of George Mason as it is now: a university with multiple entry points and pathways for student success…,” Dr. Washington said.

Petitions and Instagram account made over the new logo, Paul Allvin responds

Following the reveal, an Instagram account and petition were made against the new logo. 

A team of anonymous Mason students created an Instagram page called Students Against Logo Tragedy (SALT) on April 25, with an initiative to “spread info abt @georgemasonu’s rebranding that wasted student/taxpayer/staff $$$ & time.” 

In an Instagram post, SALT said, “Here’s Mason’s grand reveal of the new University logo. We believe they failed to transparently & publicly consult enough stakeholders, especially students, on the final design, demonstrated by the vocal & overwhelmingly negative response.”

In Dr. Washington’s letter, he said that “extensive stakeholder engagements” were held with 1,500 members of the Mason community on the logo change starting in 2021. 

However, SALT claims fewer than 250 stakeholders were involved in finalizing the logo design, with two-thirds of those involved wanting “either no or a small change,” and, “That consultation was ‘not about design at all’ according to University VP & Chief Branding Officer Paul Allvin, just finding the ‘Mason story’.”

SALT also claims, “Neither the Student Senate, Faculty Senate, or Staff Senate were asked for feedback on the rebranding, despite representing the most important parts of the Mason community.”

Allvin responded to both claims saying, “Not true. Many facts conflated and mixed together.”

In his statement to Fourth Estate, Allvin provided, “a run-down of every student touch-point over the three-year brand redevelopment process,” which reflected that 1,500 stakeholders were involved including the Student Senate, Faculty Senate and Staff Senate. 

SALT also had concerns regarding increases in student tuition in their statement to Fourth Estate:

“In a time where cost of living is skyrocketing… our University is in a deficit leading to tuition & student fees maybe being raised, departments and offices like University Life to IT Services to Title IX face staff shortages, and members of the Mason community face not only the crushing weight of student debt but homelessness and hunger, spending this money on rebranding goes against the values that George Mason University stands for.”

SALT’s concern about the allocation of funds for the logo follows the Mason Administration’s proposal to increase student tuition by 3% for in-state tuition for the 2025 and 2026 fiscal years due to funding shortfalls.

A Change.org petition was also filed on April 25 titled, “Reject the New GMU Logo!” In the petition, written by “A concerned GMU Student”, they requested “that this new logo is either completely scrapped or changed into one that keeps the spirit of the old one.”

The Mason student added, “With the rising costs of secondary education and the growing burden on the students to fund university endeavors, it is disappointing to see George Mason Funds being used to rebrand the school logo into one that is lifeless.

This rebranding under the guise of ‘modernity’ strips away the school spirit of the old one and spits in the face of crucial design elements. The new logo reeks of conformity rather than the individuality. This is especially disheartening as individuality is a driving force in so much of what the university stands for,” the Concerned GMU Student said in the petition, which currently has 335 signatures as of April 28.

Allvin responded to the petition saying, “A logo is not just an aesthetic flourish on the campus with a composition that can be crowd-sourced. It is a marketing tool that we use in the most competitive higher education market in the nation… 

Crafting such a thing is deeply technical and complicated, and it is properly done by subject matter professionals – with proper stakeholder input at the proper times, which we went to great lengths to include,” Allvin said.

The full statements, including the run-down from Allvin and SALT to Fourth Estate, can be viewed below.

How the new logo will be implemented

As Mason transitions to the new logo, “the Office of University Branding will guide the university on a gradual, two-year transition into the new look… because this is designed as a budget-neutral project,” Dr. Washington said in his letter.

Allvin explained the budget-neutral method: “It means we are not using new money to transition into the new look. This means it will take us a bit longer, but that’s not a problem.

Transition first happens with digital properties, which do not require budget. Then it moves to the materials that naturally run out or need to be replaced periodically anyway. Finally, the permanent signs, like external campus signs will need funding to pay for, and those will come from budget reallocations within the Office of University Branding over the current and next two fiscal years. 

For this year, we have reduced institutional brand advertising and other promotional expenses by $500,000 to cover this year’s implementation costs. We estimate it will cost about that much each year for FY25 and FY26, and our brand marketing will remain lowered by that much to cover those costs. It spreads conversation over two calendar years and three fiscal years, but it means no new dollars are required to complete the switch,” Allvin said.

Branding’s reception to the community reaction

In response to the overall reception to the new Mason logo, Allvin said, “I am genuinely thrilled.”

“…Initial opposition to a new visual brand is a universal and unavoidable part of this process. It is human nature to resist the change at first, but as use and familiarity grow, so do acceptance and affinity. We are seeing that process happen very rapidly just in this first day. 

As an example, we have been following social media sentiment throughout the day. In the 24 hours ending 9 am this morning [April 25], sentiment was running 90.8% negative, 5.3% neutral, and 3.9 percent positive. 

By 3 pm, the 24-hour rolling rate had shifted to 39.3% positive, 34.9% negative, and 25.7% neutral. That’s remarkable progress in just six hours by any measure,” said Allvin.

During a Student Senate meeting held on April 25, Allvin answered several questions from student senators about the new logo. He shared with the floor that “[For] the students who are graduating… we are not putting the new branding in the commencement.

The branding that these guys, who went through college about to graduate from, is going to be what you see at commencement, your commencement.

We’ll start new with new student orientation, that’s when new things start to cycle in,” Allvin said.

With the Quill M and shooting-star branded university logos being around for 20 years, this year marks a new era for the university.

In the letter regarding the logo change, Dr. Washington says, “New logos are often an acquired taste – it’s human nature to view changes like these with a certain amount of reluctance. I encourage everyone to give yourselves time to acclimate to this new look, and help integrate it into our operations by adopting it as soon as you practically can.”

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STATEMENT FROM VICE PRESIDENT AND CHIEF BRAND OFFICER PAUL ALLVIN ON NEW MASON LOGO TO FOURTH ESTATE

INTERVIEW BY BRANDYN FRAGOSA, SENIOR NEWS REPORTER ON APRIL 25

Why was the logo revealed a day earlier than planned?

“It wasn’t a day early. Our planning has always called for a Thursday public release and a Friday focus on the university. Today we just focused more on social media and news outlets. Tomorrow we will turn our focus inward, with merchandise debuting in the bookstore and a meeting with communications and marketing staffers from around the university to orient them on the new brand guides. The first unit logos outside of the general university logo will be distributed.”

Did anyone apart of the Office of University Branding know that the Mason Cable Network was going to reveal the new George Mason logo on Tuesday?

“Not that I know of. We advised them that the image they had was not accurate – it appears it was taken from our trademark filing – so it caused a lot of needless frustration to the public because they were reacting all day to a black-and-white rendering of part of the logo, with no context or explanation.”

What has been the office’s reaction to the overall reception made by the reveal?

“I am genuinely thrilled. In my career I have overseen three previous major rebrands – Make-A-Wish worldwide, the USO worldwide, and the DC-based nonprofit America’s Promise Alliance. Initial opposition to a new visual brand is a universal and unavoidable part of this process. It is human nature to resist the change at first, but as use and familiarity grow, so do acceptance and affinity. We are seeing that process happen very rapidly just in this first day. As an example, we have been following social media sentiment throughout the day. In the 24 hours ending 9 am this morning, sentiment was running 90.8% negative, 5.3% neutral, and 3.9 percent positive. By 3 pm, the 24-hour rolling rate had shifted to 39.3% positive, 34.9% negative, and 25.7% neutral. That’s remarkable progress in just six hours by any measure.”

We are aware that athletics had a different logo from the main universities, and this project changed both to one logo, the Fourth Estate was wondering if this is a new requirement listed in Policy 1111?

“No. It was simply a strategic decision made in collaboration with Intercollegiate Athletics. Branding best practice at leading universities is to operate under a unified logo so you don’t present competing symbols to the public when you’re really talking about just one university. We all grow our brands together and don’t compete against one another. It’s a basic brand principle that we’re now following. We simply needed to arrive at a design that met both the more academic/administrative needs and the needs of athletics.”

What does a budget-neutral transition mean?

“It means we are not using new money to transition into the new look. This means it will take us a bit longer, but that’s not a problem. Transition first happens with digital properties, which do not require budget. Then it moves to the materials that naturally run out or need to be replaced periodically anyway. Finally, the permanent signs, like external campus signs will need funding to pay for, and those will come from budget reallocations within the Office of University Branding over the current and next two fiscal years. For this year, we have reduced institutional brand advertising and other promotional expenses by $500,000 to cover this year’s implementation costs. We estimate it will cost about that much each year for FY25 and FY26, and our brand marketing will remain lowered by that much to cover those costs. It spreads conversation over two calendar years and three fiscal years, but it means no new dollars are required to complete the switch.”

When the logo was revealed, University President Gregory Washington sent an email saying that the project, “involved nearly 1,500 students, parents, faculty, staff, alumni, donors, and community supporters.” However, the Instagram account, also known as SALT, claims, “the only mass consultation on the logo asked under 250 people on December 7, 2023. Of that, 2/3 wanted either no or a small change…,” is this true?

“Not true. Many facts conflated and mixed together. Here is a run-down of every student touch-point over the three-year brand redevelopment process:

Organization of the brand renewal effort

2021 President’s Brand Advisory Council:

•         Student Body President appointed

Baseline research, for both narrative brand update and ultimately to inform visual brand update

2021 Qualitative research – 117 indepth interviews (76 individual and 41 focus group participants):

•         15 indepth student interviews 
•         7 student focus group interviews in two of 9 total focus groups

 2022 Quantitative survey (1,469 responses across 7 stakeholder groups)

•         223 students responded (169 undergraduates, 48 graduates, 5 PhD, 1 other)

Leadership engagement for visual brand

2022 Brand Advisory Council work session on visual brand update exploration

•         Student body president part of the council

Logo concept finalist review

•         October 23, 2023 – Entire student body invited, along with all faculty and staff, to attend an in-person evaluation session in Dewberry Auditorium to see and evaluate two finalist designs. More than 300 participants attended, but we did not check for status (i.e. how many students, faculty, staff, alumni, etc.)

Final logo concept

•         Student athlete advisory committee briefed by Director of Athletics”

How were the people involved in this project selected and what did these stakeholder meetings look like?

“In all cases, we consulted University Life to help source student participants.

Brand Advisory Council – Active early in the process, this leadership council was appointed by President Washington. Student body president was appointed.

Stakeholder interviews – This was the preparatory work for the full project, with the results informing the 2022 rhetorical rebrand (“All Together Different” narrative framework) and the 2024 visual brand (what we just released). We worked from a list generated by University Life to to conduct outreach to students to participate. The list was much longer than the eventual 17 students who gave 1:1 indepth interviews, because we had a hard time finding students interested in participating. We conducted 1 stakeholder interview per group (i.e. one with faculty, one with alumni, etc.), except for students, for whom we conducted two. Between the two, seven students showed. There was simply very little student interest in engagement among those whose contact information we were given.

Quantitative survey – Working from a list generated for us, we reached out to thousands of stakeholders, including students, inviting participation in the online survey. Outreach included repeated follow-up, as we had to work extensively to generate enough interest to obtain a critical number of responses from each stakeholder group to have a good enough feel for the collective stakeholder sentiment. In the end, we received 223 student responses.”

The Instagram account [SALT] also claims, “neither the Student Senate, Faculty Senate, or Staff Senate were asked for feedback on the rebranding,” is this true?

“No, as you can see from prior answers.”

Could you comment on the claims made by the Instagram account and the concerns raised in the petition?

“It’s not worth responding to – individual are entitled to their perspectives and feelings. It is a common part of a rebrand to experience stakeholder opposition when a new visual identity is introduced, especially if it is a complete departure from what exists.

A logo is not just an aesthetic flourish on the campus with a composition that can be crowd-sourced. It is a marketing tool that we use in the most competitive higher education market in the nation, where the 50-mile radius wherein we attract 85 percent of our student body is also home to 140-plus other college campuses, all trying to lure students, faculty, staff, and resources away. Our logo must perform against defined competitors, carry commercial appeal, stand out from the competition, and tell our story without using words or sounds. Crafting such a thing is deeply technical and complicated, and it is properly done by subject matter professionals – with proper stakeholder input at the proper times, which we went to great lengths to include.

Just as we would not crowd-source the architectural design of a building, or the financial strategy of university finances, we also don’t simply crowd-source the development of a critical tool in our marketing arsenal.

Our marketing strategy has worked amazingly well. Between 2018 and 2023, our national name identification has increased significantly, from just 12 percent of the public knowing or even having heard of George Mason to 52 percent. The perception of quality, accessibility and flexibility has established George Mason’s as one of Virginia’s three top universities, along with the University of Virginia and Virginia Tech. This logo design is simply the next step in a long, comprehensive strategy to get its brand identity to catch up with its actual quality.

All of the research we did on the visual brand to determine whether we should even make the change at all pointed to an enthusiasm by university stakeholders to make a change. People are very comfortable with the idea of change, but the comfort level drops when they are presented with an actual example of change, which is what happened yesterday. Throughout the process, we have balanced the need to address very technical marketing considerations with the need to gather stakeholder feedback at appropriate intervals.

We’ll keep listening and taking public feedback into account – along with the anticipated initial opposition has been a significant amount of stakeholder applause for the new look, so we take all input into account.”

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STATEMENT FROM “STUDENTS AGAINST LOGO TRAGEDY” TO FOURTH ESTATE

BY “STUDENTS AGAINST LOGO TRAGEDY”

Good afternoon,

The Students Against Logo Tragedy (SALT) is a group of students dedicated to spreading awareness about the recent rebranding process at George Mason University and advocating to make sure the Mason community is effectively included in decisions like these. We believe the logo process has been a tragedy because an identity-changing project with a $500k price tag lacked meaningful, transparent, and public consultation of the Mason community as an integral part of the process.

We believe the rebranding process failed to meaningfully include and consult enough of the George Mason community. In the words of the University’s Chief Brand Officer, the initial survey of around 1,500 stakeholders was “not about design at all” and only received 223 responses from students. Other early outreach focused on “patterns in rhetoric” rather than ask about design input. Later, after outside contractors and the Office of University Branding had two finalists, a closed-door event with less than 250 people (no count of how many were students was made) was held on December 7, during Finals seasons & when students had already started leaving for break. Roughly 2/3 voted for either a small change (“stylized look at the Quill”) or neither option, rather than the one ultimately chosen. In the past, it was students that voted to have green and gold as our colors, but this rebranding process chose to not publicly and transparently consult the entire Mason community about something affecting it, such as through our Faculty, Student, and Staff Senates. This is what our concern is; not the specific design of the new logo, but the failure of the consultation process to meaningfully include all stakeholders in the George Mason community.

Second, we believe that the half-a-million-dollar cost makes this consultation even more critical. We do appreciate the overall strategy that the Office of University Branding is using with the $500k for this process, by focusing on gradual replenishment for items, but some of this will be used on not-regular spending, such as signage, or on logo-specific promotion, like the display on Wilkin’s Plaza, not to mentioned that employees are of course paid for time spent on the changeover. Additionally, this is being cut from other marketing spending that could be producing revenue. This half a million was from “one time dollars” surpluses from Covid-era savings, meaning it could have been a one-time investment into other budgets as well. In a time where cost of living is skyrocketing for our staff, faculty, and students, our University is in a deficit leading to tuition & student fees maybe being raised, departments and offices like University Life to IT Services to Title IX face staff shortages, and members of the Mason community face not only the crushing weight of student debt but homelessness and hunger, spending this money on rebranding goes against the values that George Mason University stands for. That’s the Mason story we could’ve told, even as one-time investments. The rebranding process wants to tell the Mason story, but doesn’t live up to the Mason promise. 

Students graduating this year have voiced that they feel disrespected that the logo was changed without being fully asked or even told in advance. How many future alumni and potential donors will have their last memory of George Mason be a sudden & costly change to our identity that didn’t bother to ask them, yet spent the money they’d paid over years of hard work & study? That could’ve been avoided if consultation was public and meaningful, including details like the cost to implement as well as what are the best branding practices. 

Overall, our goal isn’t necessarily to ‘go back’ to the old logo, especially if that won’t save students’ and taxpayers’ money by this point. It’s to have the University and Office of University Branding commit to any future major changes like this go through a process of meaningful, public, and transparent consultation with the Mason community. Our Faculty, Staff, and Student Senates are examples of places to do this, or the recent listening session that University leadership organized on DEI and the ‘Just Societies’ curriculum change, or even setting up a dedicated Student Advisory Council that design changes must at least go through that art/design/business or any students can join, both to provide community input and build students’ experiential learning with marketing. If we had these steps, and the logo, price tag, and timeline ended up being exactly the same, this wouldn’t be the issue it is today. We are very thankful for the Office of University Branding’s leadership for being willing to talk transparently and directly to students about this after the logo was released, and are grateful for being able to have constructive dialogues with each other. We know there may be feelings of disrespect on all sides, but it is true that at the heart of the Mason story we are “All Together Different” and can come together, disagree and debate, and walk away with positive changes for the entire Mason community. 

Thank you.