A logo confession with some history

[cabbie191]

When I was looking at the thread on the sale of artwork from Gampel, I had an "aha" moment when I looked at the two pendants with the "old" and "new" Jonathans. It has been ten years since the logo was changed and I must admit that for quite a long time, I was unhappy with the change. My aha was the realization that I now prefer the new logo to the older version, and I couldn't begin to guess when this occurred in my head.

I came across an interesting article on the history of our logo: The incredible evolution of UConn's Husky logo

Highlights:

1) The original nickname of the school was the Aggies, which made sense when the school was Storrs Agricultural School.

2) The mascot was changed to the Huskies in 1934 by a vote of the student body who adopted the name of Jonathan at the same time.

3) Huskies because of the similarity between UConn and Yukon where the breed is native? Not likely because it was another five years before the school became the University of Connecticut.

4) The image below shows all the versions of Jonathan.

 

[sun]

I like the new logo a lot but I think that there's a disconnect between it & the Jonathan mascot.
The logo looks more like a Siberian Husky to me and not the typical sled dog.
Maybe it's because of the blue eyes.
Once when I looked up info on the husky breed of dogs there was like 5 different breeds with one seeming to resemble our previous logo more than the other breeds.
The corporate designer made a good logo but it's difficult to tell for sure which breed it is.
I guess that doesn't matter because of its commercial value.
Just like with the addition of red to our uniforms which isn't a UConn school color.
But as long as it looks good then Nike can "just do it" & UConn will wear it.

Someone recently brought a hoodie into my house that only has Huskies on the sleeve without any logo or school name on it.
When I first saw it I figured that it must be a way to get around paying licensing fees.

 

[cabbie191]

Someone recently brought a hoodie into my house that only has Huskies on the sleeve without any logo or school name on it.
When I first saw it I figured that it must be a way to get around paying licensing fees.

Or maybe the person was being coy and leaving you to wonder if he/she supports UConn, Southern Maine, Northern Illinois, Michigan Tech, Northeastern, St Cloud State (MN) or UWash.

Interesting that none of the Alaskan colleges adopted the Husky - the mascots there are the Seawovles (Anchorage), Polar Bears (Fairbanks), and Humpback Whales (Southeast Alaska).

 

[CL82]

I am partial to the white husky since that was our mascot for something like 80 years prior to the last rebranding:

Susan Herbst said that they changed to a Siberian husky, because there was no such thing as a white husky, which is clearly wrong and utterly uninformed as to the schools history. I am hopeful at the next re-branding they will go back to an all white husky. While there are several schools with huskies as mascots, we are the only school that had an all white husky as a mascot. It was great branding.

 

[The CDR-Ret]

I am partial to the white husky since that was our mascot for something like 80 years prior to the last rebranding:

View attachment 89056

Susan Herbst said that they changed to a Siberian husky, because there was no such thing as a white husky, which is clearly wrong and utterly uninformed as to the schools history. I am hopeful at the next re-branding they will go back to an all white husky. While there are several schools with huskies as mascots, we are the only school that had an all white husky as a mascot. It was great branding.

I think we need a sweatshirt with a Husky chasing random mascots [all those above us in last year's final poll for example] up a tree... Reenacting Jonathan II vs. the bear [could have been a preview of Baylor Bears....] - the source of my "HaHa moment" above...

 

[Beemer]

I still don't like the "new" logo- it looks like everybody & his brother's husky dog. I like the old one much better, white huskies are rare/special. He did look a little too friendly but that could have been easily changed, no need to get rid of it entirely.

 

[itsasport]

My father was on the UConn football team the year that Johnathan II chased the Brown Bear (cub) up a tree. There is a picture of it in the yearbook. When I first saw it, I thought that it was staged; but, my dad said it was real. However, most embarrassing to Brown was the score of the game- Brown got slaughtered (at home.) My father told me that there were signs saying, "Welcome Cow College."

In those days, the Ivy league schools had the best teams in the East. Uconn was just a new agricultural college.

I also liked the big, pure white husky mascots that lasted at least until the 70's. When they galloped along the sidelines it was a very impressive sight.

 

[CL82]

My father was on the UConn football team the year that Johnathan II chased the Brown Bear (cub) up a tree. There is a picture of it in the yearbook. When I first saw it, I thought that it was staged; but, my dad said it was real. However, most embarrassing to Brown was the score of the game- Brown got slaughtered (at home.) My father told me that there were signs saying, "Welcome Cow College."

In those days, the Ivy league schools had the best teams in the East. Uconn was just a new agricultural college.

I also liked the big, pure white husky mascots that lasted at least until the 70's. When they galloped along the sidelines it was a very impressive sight.

The use of an all white husky lasted until 2013, if I recall correctly.