USF Students Hate the School’s New $50,000 Logo

Students at any quality college or university will have much asked of them from various authority figures, but they must never forget that they should be equally inquisitive. Enrollees at the University of South Florida (USF) have had their curiosity compelled this entire school year and especially this past week, speaking out against their institution’s modified academic logo, an emblem that officials have had little luck defending since its autumn implementation.

Since we here at Promo Marketing keep close track of collegiate athletics, we are aware that the Tampa learning location calls upon pretty neat artwork for its athletic logo. Relying on a horned “U” to serve as a symbol of its Bulls nickname, the output is a striking means to instill pride in student-athletes and fear among their foes. In September, though, that identifier became castrated, to a degree, through the introduction of an academic representation that an online petition claims never received vetting from current students and alumni.

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— University of South Florida (@USouthFlorida) March 12, 2019

Regardless of the validity of that charge by USF enrollee Alexis Loukota, the school—having spent $39,450 on the initial design, an adapted look and “logo lockdowns” for all entities across the university—continued to tout the now-bull-included academic logo. In a case of making something bad look worse, at least from the point of view of the petition creator and her contemporaries, USF unveiled a revised logo on March 12, citing “feedback from our audiences, as well as campus communicators regarding evolving challenges with printing, signage and apparel implications” as the inspiration.

USF is certainly free to tinker with how it presents itself to the masses, and if the new academic logo significantly addressed the quoted issues, there might not be as much backlash as the school has taken via Facebook. As it stands, this month’s modified version does not appear to be much of a change at all, and, thanks to its $7,835 price tag, commenters have grown even more discontent, led by Loukota and her desire to have the school revert to its former academic logo.

Because the new bull-centric scholastic symbol does not seem like much of an improvement, we wonder what the “challenges” were with the logo introduced in September. If there were “printing, signage and apparel implications,” what were they and what does this new emblem do to solve those qualms? In attempting to resolve those issues, however, might USF be inviting danger?

That’s a question on the minds of a few Facebook commenters, who feel that Merrill Lynch, the investing and wealth management behemoth that also calls upon a bull for its logo, has cause to pursue a trademark infringement case against the institution. The school, according to the Tampa Bay Times, does not expect such an encounter, so we will not give much attention to that. What concerns us, though, is whether Loukota et al have enough steam to mimic University of Nevada Las Vegas students who balked at one of their school’s logos and whether the here-to-stay symbol of a bull will keep those pesky “evolving challenges” at bay.