education building

Who knew how fast and furious the internet would offer up a glimpse of peoples first impressions of the new SFU brand ?

First up is a somewhat critical story on Digg, which over the weekend received a surprising amount of follow up “Diggs” by other Diggers. (For those whom I just lost, Digg is a site that allows people to post stories, or links of interest, and as more users read the article, they can promote it (digg it?), or bury it into obscurity.) The SFU story has received 230 ‘Diggs’ at this point which is pretty good, in terms of attention. “Theres no such thing as bad publicity“, so the saying goes… Even though the title is a little critical, (nay cheeky even), by reading some of the more thoughtful comments, a more balanced story is conveyed.

Next (and I think the same people(s) may be responsible for starting both of these stories) was an amazing turn out on facebook as two different groups were introduced. One was in the ‘constructive criticism’ category, the other… downright rude! Nevertheless, over 700 ‘adds’ have been recorded, and a large number of student contributed artwork has been added to the picture galleries. Oh my! Although much of it is rather derogatory (think bathroom wall kinda stuff), I thought this one was kinda clever and cute, albeit a tad obscure.

.

So while all this may not at first seem to be the most positive spin on what the university has been trying to do in terms of re branding, I think there is a very important and incredible thing going on here. And that is, discussion! Sharing, feedback, the exchange of opinions and ideas in an open forum. A place where students, staff and anyone can go to contribute their thoughts has got to be worth something. Just the fact that others can easily stop by and see what people are saying is valuable in my opinion, worth more than 10x the money spent in usability studies.

One question, what in the heck are all these students doing on facebook all the time when they should be in WebCT doing their homework?!
(I actually have a pretty good guess, but it may be something for others to ponder.)

Whether you like the new logo or not, many people have put a lot of hard work and time into it. I find there is a definite bias that just because something looks ’simple’, that it must have been quick and easy to produce. Not to mention cheap. That is rarely the case and in fact quite the opposite in most examples. From a designers perspective, I would not use the term ’simple’ at all for this logo, instead perhaps the terms ‘clean’ and elegant’ would be more appropriate.

Lastly I will add one big shout out to my colleague Eryn, who was on the ball enough to see to it that the new logo did not go long before being integrated into the site as a favicon. That is, the little icon that appears in the address bar of the browser or besides items that you bookmark. The old one was in dire need of a revision, and I’d wager this small change alone will improve peoples perception of our site significantly. Way to go girl!