Every student was emailed directly with an opportunity to complete the survey on the rebrand – it doesn’t get much more unlimited than that. Updates on the rebrand were brought to every Union Council this year (an open meeting). I have seen my own name on the Change.org petition more than three times, despite not having signed it, so I am dubious to take its results immediately at face value with no means of verifying that there are no double counts or votes from non-members. The petition was also launched in response to one sign, not the entire rebrand, and since one version of the Branding Guidelines leaked the response has drastically changed in mood. While some students think that the cost of the rebrand was a waste (despite the fact that it was less expensive than other student Union rebrands of late), it would be obviously far more wasteful to have taken the time, effort and money to collect over 2,300 student responses, hold several workshops (where all students got to have a go at designing the new logo themselves) and go through several iterations of design only to remain as we were.

At the time this YMC was submitted, a tiny fraction of the whole brand had been released. Overall, it makes it clearer to students when they are interacting with the Union, allowing us to better serve them, better highlight opportunities available to them, and clean up our advertising of events, services and opportunities which has become so messy in recent years. Having a clear means of identifying Union activity naturally leads to a greater number of students engaging with those activities which is better for student groups, better for student experience, and the greater number of students involved with the Union gives us more weight when challenging the University on things like library heating and microwave provision.

Finally, while I understand that change is always jarring, I genuinely think to anybody with no attachment to it (remembering that we have a new income of students ever year) the new one is infinitely better than the old one. Now that it has been revealed in full, with opportunities for students and student groups to be creative with it, a full colour palette, I think it is hard to make a case that the old logo is as modern, relevant, or dynamic as this one and it would be a pity to take a step back. The old logo, when implemented, was heavily criticised too (https://blogs.susu.org/officers/2011/04/04/susu-the-rebrand/) – it is a natural part of rebranding and if it persists once there has been a settling period and students are still demanding a change back when the smoke clears, absolutely we will treat the idea of un-rebranding as any idea brought to us by students.  

Ben Franklin
Union President