Finalists for new UH logo draw mixed reviews

By Beverly Creamer
Advertiser Education Writer

Consensus builders they are not. Not yet, anyway.

"I just hate it. Period," said senior design student Dimitri Kim, squinting through dark glasses and curling a lip. "This looks like a kung fu logo or a gong, and this is some kind of little hurricane," he said, jabbing a fingertip at the logos created after a yearlong process and $82,000 for the Baltimore firm that won the contract.

Steps away, a tableful of students outside the Campus Center declared the "Spectrum" design, with the yin-yang center, was definitely their preference, and a pretty good image at that.

"It shows more power," said freshman Brandon Yamamoto, 18. Blane Kagamida agreed. "It just stands out a lot more."

What does it say? "I have no idea," he said.

It was like that in every corner of the 10-campus system, just hours after the two logos were posted on the UH Web site, the results of a 25-member systemwide committee that has overseen the process of finding a new UH "brand" to replace approximately 150 separate images being used now.

The search for a new logo is part of a sweeping campaign intended to give UH a clearer identity and a new image to market the university internationally.

Comment is being invited until May 2, at which point the committee will make a choice to be presented to the Board of Regents for action at its May meeting.

The Warrior "H" will remain in use for athletic teams, and the UH seal will continue to be used on diplomas.

As he headed home after classes, 20-year-old history major Kale Kingsbury bent quizzically over the logos and declared of Spectrum: "This is stylish, but maybe not quite the image of the UH, and inside it looks like some kind of weapon from a martial arts movie.

"The first ("Wave") looks like a galaxy of sorts, and with our Institute for Astronomy that could be a pretty good image."

But at the UH Art Gallery, director and art professor Tom Klobe was in mourning for the old Manoa campus logo with the open book and torch, and complained that the Spectrum design was "hostile and threatening," and a lot like the Korean Air logo.

Meanwhile, Jon Osorio, associate professor at the Center for Hawaiian Studies, said he couldn't see anything particularly Hawaiian in it. "It misses the mark with me," he said.

In the business school, marketing instructor Art Richardson praised it as a "sophisticated" logo that suggests Hawai'i is the gateway to Asia, along with images of waves and sails. But John Wisnosky, chairman of the Art Department, said he was furious about the cost and wasn't enamored with either design, especially because one looked more like a family crest.

"It's not meant to hang in the Louvre," said Paul Costello, UH Vice President for External Affairs, who launched the search for a clearer brand identity.

"Logos are always tricky business," Costello said. "What a logo has to be is something pretty unique. It has to embody who we are and what we want to tell others about our story. The committee felt each of the designs embodied something specific and unique about the UH system."

At Kaua'i Community College, Bobbie Bulatao-Franklin, director of the Office of Continuing Education and Training, had just e-mailed the images to the 1,200 students on campus, and pulled up the Web site at the cabinet meeting so all the bosses could see.

"Sometimes you see an Asian flavor and sometimes Polynesian sails, and sometimes you see the old warrior's helmet," Bulatao-Franklin said. "The swirling one is contemporary and modern, and suggests something dynamic and bold."

Reach Beverly Creamer at bcreamer@honoluluadvertiser.com or 525-8013.