Jan 2012 20

Logo fiasco5

The University of Salford has just spent more than £130,000 of taxpayers’ money on a new logo. This comes shortly after the university had announced 200 job cuts as part of measures to save money.

Presumably the new logo came in at this spectacular figure partly because the design agency’s first effort attracted criticism as (horror of horrors) it included the word “Manchester” in the university’s title, ie. University of Salford Manchester. The rebranded rebrand now titles the institution as The University of Salford.

You paid £130,000 for this

Responding to the criticism, a university spokeswoman said: “The brand is much more than a logo or design. It was the result of extensive research and consultation, including more than 500 students and staff who were asked about which university values were important to them.”

Since the university has a graphic design department offering a BA Hons degree, you’d have thought they could have taken their “consultation” one step further and actually got the students and staff to come up with a logo themselves, thus providing valuable experience for their students and a saving of approximately £132,336.

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  • Samadden

    what a joke!

  • Chris Woods

    An obscene waste of money isn’t it.
    I worked in an institution that did a similar excercise years ago. In addition to the consultant fees it involved a complete replacement of all new preprinted office stationary, all new info leaflets, maps etc, and new web/advertising templates. New signage for buildings was needed and they even specified that all correspondence and literature must use a specific ‘matching’ font – one that was not available with ordinary software but had to be purchased additionally!

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  • Blarg1987

    Hold on I am confused, the University system provides a service and is not state owned or controlled and gets tax payer contracts to fund students, by this logic is the TPA going to investoigate :

    BAE systems
    Rolls Royce
    Balfour Beatty
    IBM
    Cerco

    And any other company that provides a service for tax payers in which case I look forward to reading in anticipation :)