Wisconsin, Washburn wrangling over ?W? logos

[Gothamite]

Yeah, we go around and around on that design every time the Badgers come up in a thread. I love it, most think it too plain.

I am all for original designs, but I do not understand why Wisconsin is so hard on them.

Two reasons:

1. They are legally required to crack down on bootleggers, be they t-shirt sellers or other universities.
   
2. Why shouldn't they be? Are you in the habit of letting people take things you paid for?
   

The other issue is that this is a letter in the alphabet, although Washburn's redesigned W is very similar to Wisconsin's motion W, I still think of it as the letter W, and not Wisconsin's logo.

Well, by that logic, 90% of major league teams can't protect their cap logos.

The question here is the expression of that letter. Wisconsin paid someone to design an expression of that letter that was uniquely theirs. Something that people all around the country would see and know it meant "Wisconsin," never confusing it with anything else. Now another school comes along, and people in that area look at the logo that Wisconsin paid for and think "Washburn." What does that do for Wisconsin's investment?

I too am stunned that anyone here would do anything but vigorously back Wisconsin's rights to defend their intellectual property.

[Ez Street]

Wisconsin

Washburn Old

Washburn New

[BallWonk]

To anyone who doubts that the Washburn logo is a theft of Wisconsin's intellectual property, just look closely at the inside and outside edges of the serifs atop the left and right stems of the letter. Where the serifs hit the stems, how they connect to the stems, and the inside/outside asymmetry are all ripped straight from Wisconsin's W. Throw in the fact that Washburn recently used an actual straightforward copy of Wisconsin's W, and this becomes one of the clearest, least defensible examples of outright theft I've seen recently. It's blatant and shameless and it's illegal.

But at the bottom of this sordid case is not a greedy Big Ten school picking on lesser institutions. The real bottom line here is a sad little regional school that appears to have no pride. A school that has to steal a logo (or worse, that thinks it can cover up its theft by deliberately uglifying a stolen logo) tells a very damning story of its own lack of institutional self-respect every time it displays that stolen logo.

I wish high schools and minor colleges would get it through their heads that the worst-designed original logo is better than the best copycat logo. And just think of what this kind of logo theft tells the student body: "None of you is smart enough or clever enough or just plain good enough to come up with something to represent your school." That's just wrong. Between faculty, students, and alumni, every school can find the talent to create an original school logo that will serve the school better than any copycat logo possibly could. And along the way, the school will have empowered and unleashed the creative talents of some of its students.

I should think that anyone who really cared for Washburn would be glad to see Wisconsin come down on their school's sorry administration and force Washburn to unleash the talents of its faculty and students to create an emblem that the school can take pride in.

[KJTALBOT]

Let's look at it from the Washburn side.

Why would you want another school's identity?

There are many ways to script a "W". Look at Wayne State in Detroit.

Don't be lazy and rip off other people.

[Ez Street]

To anyone who doubts that the Washburn logo is a theft of Wisconsin's intellectual property, just look closely at the inside and outside edges of the serifs atop the left and right stems of the letter. Where the serifs hit the stems, how they connect to the stems, and the inside/outside asymmetry are all ripped straight from Wisconsin's W. Throw in the fact that Washburn recently used an actual straightforward copy of Wisconsin's W, and this becomes one of the clearest, least defensible examples of outright theft I've seen recently. It's blatant and shameless and it's illegal.

But at the bottom of this sordid case is not a greedy Big Ten school picking on lesser institutions. The real bottom line here is a sad little regional school that appears to have no pride. A school that has to steal a logo (or worse, that thinks it can cover up its theft by deliberately uglifying a stolen logo) tells a very damning story of its own lack of institutional self-respect every time it displays that stolen logo.

I wish high schools and minor colleges would get it through their heads that the worst-designed original logo is better than the best copycat logo. And just think of what this kind of logo theft tells the student body: "None of you is smart enough or clever enough or just plain good enough to come up with something to represent your school." That's just wrong. Between faculty, students, and alumni, every school can find the talent to create an original school logo that will serve the school better than any copycat logo possibly could. And along the way, the school will have empowered and unleashed the creative talents of some of its students.

I should think that anyone who really cared for Washburn would be glad to see Wisconsin come down on their school's sorry administration and force Washburn to unleash the talents of its faculty and students to create an emblem that the school can take pride in.

Well, what is shocking is the current administration of the school is VERY good. But obviously not in this department.

There is a lot more school pride in town recently, which is due to recent success of the athletics programs.

They do have another logo they use:

[Gothamite]

That's a great logo.

They could do so much better than the Motion W - why be lazy and steal somebody else's?

[andrewharrington]

To anyone who doubts that the Washburn logo is a theft of Wisconsin's intellectual property, just look closely at the inside and outside edges of the serifs atop the left and right stems of the letter. Where the serifs hit the stems, how they connect to the stems, and the inside/outside asymmetry are all ripped straight from Wisconsin's W.

While I don't defend Washburn creating this sort of confusion with a similar logo, that's just not true. The outside connection of the left serif to the stem on the Motion W takes a hard round and points downward. Wasburn's makes a shallow round and points up. The inside Motion W serifs connect to the stems via smooth, rounded transitions. Washburn's connect at corners here. The Motion W features serifs of more or less identical width with more or less vertical sides. Washburn's outside serifs are mch wider than the middle serif and they flare outward instead of extending vertical. Once again, I don't condone Washburn, but it's not the serifs and their connections that are going to sink Washburn (those are actually the parts most disparate from the Motion W); It's the sum of the parts, the whole shape and character of the Washburn W, not to mention the fact that they were allegedly previously ordered to cease using a the actual Motion W and didn't comply. It's a shame, but they're probably going down hard.

[illwauk]

But at the bottom of this sordid case is not a greedy Big Ten school picking on lesser institutions. The real bottom line here is a sad little regional school that appears to have no pride. A school that has to steal a logo (or worse, that thinks it can cover up its theft by deliberately uglifying a stolen logo) tells a very damning story of its own lack of institutional self-respect every time it displays that stolen logo.

I think you definetly have a point (more than a few, actually). But UW-Madison (known outside the Badger State as the University of Wisconsin) has never shown itself to be above putting its own greed and self-interests when dealing with "lesser institutions." Case in point, when UW-Milwaukee wanted to add an Africology doctoral program, it needed approval from the other 12 UW schools to add it. 11 approved it... guess who the only disenter was? Nevermind that it would've made Wisconsin one of only 3 states to have a doctoral program for Africology in its state. And nevermind that Milwaukee is home to 3/4ths of Wisconsin's Black population and obviously having such a program here (at least in theory) would mean much more than anywhere else in the state. And nevermind that UW-Madison wasn't even planning on starting its own such program. Their reason for not approving it was nothing more than an leagalese version of "if we don't have one, why should they?"

I know that doesn't have much to do with the Washburn situation directly, but as someone who's been personally f***ed over by UW-Madison's selfishness (care to guess what my major was?), I have absolutley no sympathy for any "malicious" attempts made to destroy its image.......... regardless of the fact that it's all in the heads of the UW-Madison administration

[Gothamite]

Any one here could take a vector of the Motion W and create the revised Washburn W with 15 minutes and a copy of Illustrator.

Do you suppose they bought into that "change 25% and the design is now yours" myth?

[illwauk]

I always heard it was 20%

Maybe we can eventually get the number to a high enough percentage that lazy "artists" will just decide it's easier to come up with something original.

[Gothamite]

That 20% isn't true. We talked about this on Uniwatch a few months back.

If you start with somebody else's logo, it doesn't matter how many changes you make - the result will never be yours.

The myth lives, though. I'm guessing that's what Washburn was thinking.

[powersurge]

That 20% isn't true. We talked about this on Uniwatch a few months back.

If you start with somebody else's logo, it doesn't matter how many changes you make - the result will never be yours.

The myth lives, though. I'm guessing that's what Washburn was thinking.

I wish the same rules applied to music.

EDIT: If it did, Led Zeppelin wouldn't have had a career. Stealing bastards...but thats for another forum in another site.

[Gothamite]

Close - don't you get something like six bars free, and then you have to pay for it?

Maybe I'm wrong, though - Queen and David Bowie went after Vanilla Ice for sampling "Under Pressure," and won, didn't they?

[powersurge]

The whole music stealing issue is so vague that it makes me sick.

It sucks when a legendary band like Led Zeppelin was able to build a career of stealing licks from other bands. I guess they kind of paid for their thievery by way of all of the horrible events that occured to the band members over their history.

[BallWonk]

Any one here could take a vector of the Motion W and create the revised Washburn W with 15 minutes and a copy of Illustrator.

Do you suppose they bought into that "change 25% and the design is now yours" myth?

I thought the rule was that if the professor hasn't shown up after 10 minutes, then class is cancelled.

Seeing Washburn's fantastic other logo, I'm even happier about UW coming down on Washburn for this theft. I can see at least five different ways that walking-man logo could be used on a helmet, any one of which would be among the best helmets in all of college ball. It's just a sin that the athletic department is not using the school's actual logo in this case.

[Gothamite]

I heard that if your roommate dies, the school exempts you from classes for the rest of the semester and you get a 4.0....

[Ez Street]

Any one here could take a vector of the Motion W and create the revised Washburn W with 15 minutes and a copy of Illustrator.

Do you suppose they bought into that "change 25% and the design is now yours" myth?

I thought the rule was that if the professor hasn't shown up after 10 minutes, then class is cancelled.

Seeing Washburn's fantastic other logo, I'm even happier about UW coming down on Washburn for this theft. I can see at least five different ways that walking-man logo could be used on a helmet, any one of which would be among the best helmets in all of college ball. It's just a sin that the athletic department is not using the school's actual logo in this case.

The original "Walking Man", the Ichabod was created by Bradbury Thompson

The "Walking Man" is a depiction of Ichabod Washburn. His gift of an endowment to Lincoln College of Topeka, cause the school to change it's name to refelct Mr. Washburn.

Thompson's original "Walking Man" Ichabod:

[powersurge]

I heard that if your roommate dies, the school exempts you from classes for the rest of the semester and you get a 4.0....

Is that really even true?

I just thought that it was a joke created by one of my friends in college.

[leopard88]

I thought the rule was that if the professor hasn't shown up after 10 minutes, then class is cancelled.

10 minutes for intro level courses, 8 minutes for advanced and graduate classes.

I heard that if your roommate dies, the school exempts you from classes for the rest of the semester and you get a 4.0....

Is that really even true?

I just thought that it was a joke created by one of my friends in college.

Only if it was a suicide. You get a 4.0 for two semesters if you discover the body.

______________________________

Back on topic --

If you showed me a Washburn W without the Motion W beside it, I would have assumed it was an exact match. In some respect, that may be even more damning than a side-by-side/point-by-point comparison.

Back off topic --

illwauk, if you have so many reasons to be angry at UW-Madison, why do you have a Motion W and a picture of Camp Randall Stadium in your sig?

[MisterE]

Washburn isn't the only school that uses Wisconsin's motion W. Illinois Wesleyan uses a white and silver version on their helmets and occasionally on other items usually associated with football. Which brings to mind that IWU uses an old Michigan State logo for basketball. The university just can't come up with its own, unique logo.

I guess I better slip the IWU athletic director a copy of this article under his front door.

EDIT: Heres the link to the Mighigan State logo I was refering to. For some reason it wouldn't appear from the old link.

http://www.sportslogos.net/logo.php?id=fw2f89syje0hf2clevi4