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Dialog Concerning two Symbols

Professor Patrick Henry Winston ’65, SM ’67, PhD ’70

I heard some people talking the other day about the MIT logo—the one that emerged in 2000 or so, not the 1863 seal, which was often used as a logo in the old days.

Simplicio: The new MIT logo is great. I was poking arround on the web the other day, and learned that “The MIT logo distills into one symbol everything the Institute wants to communicate about itself.”

Salviati: Oh, what exactly does it tell us about everything the Institute wants to say about itself?

Simplicio: Here it is, straight from the web: “The logo was designed to be straightforward, like MIT, with solid letterforms that reflect the Institute's history of achievement.”

Salviati: I always wondered why  uses solid letterforms in its logo.  Exxon must be straightforward too, like MIT. But how do solid letterforms reflect the Institute's history of achievement?

Simplicio: It is too hard to explain. Just take it on faith.

Sagredo: You know, I miss Mens et Manus. I thought Mind and Hand reflected the Institute's history of deep thought and building stuff.

Simplicio: That old logo is out of date and too hard to render on a computer screen. Besides the Institute is evolving.

Salviati: Right. Maybe Harvard will evolve and get a new logo too, also with solid letterforms, something like , which surely would be a much better reflection of what Harvard wants to say about itself than the old logo, .

Simplico: Yes, I'm not too good at Latin, but I think veritas and Mens et Manus are labels for old-fashioned concepts. I imagine Harvard graduates no longer want to associate themselves with veritas, whatever that means.

Salviati: I wonder why Princeton hasn't dumped  in favor of

Simplicio: Good question. I'm sure , with its solid letterforms, would be a better reflection of how Princeton graduates think of themselves today.

As for me, I have a lot of friends who were on that design committee, all honorable people, but somehow,  I miss Mens et Manus.  I suppose it is a matter on which reasonable people can disagree.

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Comments

Maria-Katerina

Wed, 05/12/2010 7:41pm

I like the old symbol too....

Dick Marciano

Thu, 04/29/2010 4:11pm

Languages keep changing through so-called modern usage [like different definitions of beaver]. Better to stick with Latin, it doesn't change. Mens et manus has my vote. As for veritas for that other school, I'd almost accept that too -- but better to add a punctuation mark after it. Make it "Veritas?"

H. Roberts Coward

Thu, 04/29/2010 1:09pm

During the President's reception during my 50th reunion I asked President Hockfield what she thought of the logo -- which I find indecipherable. The gist of her response was that she was not exactly wild about it, but too much was invested in it to do any fiddling around.

Cater

Thu, 04/29/2010 9:49am

The Mens et Manus gents still speak to me as a class of 1980 alum, and I think that logo should still have first priority and be the official go-to representation to the outside world. The solid letterforms are cool, modern and render easily but what is a few more bytes between friends? Consider one the public & print face of the Institute (Mens et Manus), while the 2000 logo is the web face. Just a question of perspective, after all.

Regarding Harvard & Veritas--seems to me that truth left most of the graduates of that schoolhouse long ago.

Brian

Thu, 04/29/2010 12:36am

I like the mens et manus seal

Fred Rust '77

Wed, 04/28/2010 9:21pm

Not only a logo, but a game! The seven rectangles (yeah, one is a square rectangle) of the logo can be arranged as a house, a boat, or a rocketship. Let's try to design more fun shapes!

Doug M

Wed, 04/28/2010 7:40pm

I like that the new logo was designed for MICR (magnetic ink character recognition) printing, just like on the checks I hardly use any more. We zoomed straight from 1863 to 1963 in a single move. It may not be human-readable, but I feel safer knowing that our robots will be able to find their way home. In the commentary ("above"), the individual letter fragments in the proffered "HU" and "PU" graphics are closer together than the pieces of separate letters, whereas the near-identical spacing of the "MIT" fragments enhances its overall unreadability. To me it screams "square pegs in square holes" and "needlessly obtuse" -- both aspects of the MIT community which hardly need better marketing. I will grant that, ignoring little details like upper-lower case, they did apparently spell it right. I will also grant that it is visually far more interesting than just printing "MIT" in 256-point block letters. Maybe a logo spelling out "MIT" in 3 wooden blocks would have been a reasonable compromise. We could modernize it with a robot arm moving the "T" into place. Now make it a little grainy and overlay machine-vision edge enhancements, and we have a logo.

Sandy Harris XII '69

Wed, 04/28/2010 6:35pm

I like the old logo best -- particularly as rendered with the figure on the left being clearly female. The new logo lacks -- heart? soul? interest? Too much trying to show off how innovative we can be -- wait, isn't that how buildings are designed for the campus??

[I rather liked the Harvard shield that VooDoo published back in the day, with Veritas replaced by Vomitus.]

Anthony E. Sca…

Wed, 04/28/2010 6:03pm

Simplicio said, "I imagine Harvard graduates no longer want to associate themselves with veritas, whatever that means." It means truth. I like to think Harvard and other institutions' faculty and students are devoted to searching for and teaching truth. MIT, too.

Neil O

Sun, 04/18/2010 12:12pm

You're not alone. See this blog and the ensuing commentary about the attempt to rebrand the University of Waterloo:

http://www.underconsideration.com/brandnew/archives/will_waterloo_logo_survive.php


I particularly like this comment:
"Design by committee: BAAAAADDDD.
Design by Students: the darkness, the pain, the agony"

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