New UUA Corporate Identity Logo 2014

Some Big Fat U*U News was revealed yesterday:

The Unitarian Universalist Association has a brand spanking new Big Fat U*U Logo. 

You can see it pictured below.





The announcement "The UUA Brand Story" came out as well.

There was also an episode of "The VUU" that discussed some of the story behind the new UUA's new logo; watch the last 30 minutes of this U*UTube video for that conversation.

There was quite a bit of talk about this in the social networking media yesterday among UUs (and some of our non-UU friends who joined in).  It would seem (as many pointed out) that how you see this new, airy, abstract logo is a bit of a Rorschach test. 

What do you see?

Rev. Tom Schade had a few posts on his blog that (along with the comments) might give you a feel of how the discussions went.  The first post he wrote was "Behold the New Logo".  This was followed by "UU Ministers discuss new logo".  The most recent of his posts on the topic (where I was unable to post a comment) is "Painful".  It has been interesting to read such Big Fat U*U Reactions, leading some to speculate that maybe the tension/emotion isn't really about the logo... but more about feelings about the UUA, or authority (including ministerial authority), or what have you.

No logo is going to please everyone, ever.  I can say that this new one has grown on me over the past 24 hours. In the Big Fat U*U End, it's just a major part of the corporate identity of The U*U Movement aka The Tiny Declining Fringe Religion.  I believe that how people see Unitarian Universalism will have much more to do with how U*Us are in their U*U communities and in the real world; then others might notice U*Us and (eventually) the UUA's brand spanking new logo.

On the other hand, this is apparently "part one" of a re-branding effort, so I'm waiting with hope on what is to come.

Meanwhile, Rev. Cynthia Landrum has written "An Open Letter to the UUA", which is a very thoughtful response to this Big Fat U*U FiASSco. I like many of her suggestions about ways that the UUA can help congregations, particularly its numerous smaller ones.



I am mindful that it took much longer than 24 hours for the last logo (shown above) to grow on me.  When it was revealed in 2006 it was critiqued as looking "too corporate", and it was ridiculed with names like "the bear trap", "the Venus fly trap", and (my personal favorite) "the logo of Guadalupe".  But it did grow on me, and on many U*Us.

It is human nature to have an immediate reaction to a new image, maybe particularly a new logo for something that we hold dear.  Some of you will immediately like or even love the new logo (at the top of this post). Some of you will feel ambivalent or not strongly about it. And some of you will immediately dislike it. I suppose that's inevitable.  But like the great Taoist and Zen story (that I shared in my recent sermon "Beautiful Losers") puts it, "We'll see".

Comments

Anonymous said…
interesting stuff, it goes to show how much thought and effort are put into the smallest things in buisness. Nice blog man, followed!

Corporate Identity