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New Billiken to be revealed


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2 minutes ago, LongLiveLisch said:

I decided to spend more time this because uh....whatever, I did. Here is a more fluid version of an all white Billiken mascot.  One with a smirk mouth as I prefer, and one with his mouth open. You'll notice on the Billiken with the smirk that he has kind of a grainy shadow above his mouth, this is to simulate what they would need to do to allow someone to see out of it. 

 

BillikenBigMouth.jpg

BillikenCloseMouth.jpg

You're doing a good job with a pile of sh!t, but it's still a pile of sh!t.  I seriously can't believe some professional firm was paid to come up with this.  Even worse, I can't believe the client (SLU) picked it.  Were the other options that much worse?  

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34 minutes ago, LongLiveLisch said:

I decided to spend more time this because uh....whatever, I did. Here is a more fluid version of an all white Billiken mascot.  One with a smirk mouth as I prefer, and one with his mouth open. You'll notice on the Billiken with the smirk that he has kind of a grainy shadow above his mouth, this is to simulate what they would need to do to allow someone to see out of it. 

 

BillikenBigMouth.jpg

BillikenCloseMouth.jpg

Thank you for attempting to clean up our pile of sh!t. 

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33 minutes ago, moytoy12 said:

You're doing a good job with a pile of sh!t, but it's still a pile of sh!t.  I seriously can't believe some professional firm was paid to come up with this.  Even worse, I can't believe the client (SLU) picked it.  Were the other options that much worse?  

In my experience with mascot design the client explains what they want and the company(I'd assume is Kincaid Karacter, the people who did the last one). There is no professional design firm involved.

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23 minutes ago, billikenfan05 said:

Okay. Whatever you wanna think.

My bad.  You're probably right.  I'm sure SLU paid a ton of money to an outside firm for a major re-branding effort yet SLU did the heavy lifting on re-designing one of the most important pieces of marketing assets the school has. 

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5 hours ago, willie said:

At a recent university meet and greet I was introduced to a young man who was a recent hire in charge of social media for the university.Whether this his work or Dr. P it has been well done. 

Just a little too much cool with just a little too much snark to be entirely Pestello.  I noticed he was also including a GIFs with a few of his Tweets.  Not to say that he would not know how to do it, but at that point, developing content takes work...

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14 minutes ago, moytoy12 said:

My bad.  You're probably right.  I'm sure SLU paid a ton of money to an outside firm for a major re-branding effort yet SLU did the heavy lifting on re-designing one of the most important pieces of marketing assets the school has. 

They've completely mishandled the Billiken mascot for years. They've never treated it as the most important piece of marketing which it should be. At times the Billiken was just played by whatever gameday intern drew the short straw. The people playing the Billiken should be given some sort of incentive in the area of scholarship money or books. They should be trained or sent to a mascot camp(yes that's a thing). We have the most unique nickname/mascot in all of college sports and for the most part all the Billiken does is walk around and wave.

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8 hours ago, LongLiveLisch said:

I decided to spend more time this because uh....whatever, I did. Here is a more fluid version of an all white Billiken mascot.  One with a smirk mouth as I prefer, and one with his mouth open. You'll notice on the Billiken with the smirk that he has kind of a grainy shadow above his mouth, this is to simulate what they would need to do to allow someone to see out of it. 

 

BillikenBigMouth.jpg

BillikenCloseMouth.jpg

Either option is so much better than the new mascot. I even don't mind the top one with the open mouth. I can't even fathom how anyone thought the stupid two-toned thing looked good, unless it's some sort of diversity thing. In which case, make the entire Billiken gray. It seems blasphemous, but it's a better option than the current two faced freak. 

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11 hours ago, moytoy12 said:

My bad.  You're probably right.  I'm sure SLU paid a ton of money to an outside firm for a major re-branding effort yet SLU did the heavy lifting on re-designing one of the most important pieces of marketing assets the school has. 

Now, play nice, you two. You're most probably both right. If we dig into the original redesign thread we can find the name of the out-of-town design firm that did the full AD rebranding. At very worst the AD took the design standards book to Kincaid (or whomever) and said, "Make it match this." I'd bet (although I feel sorry for them if this is the outcome) that someone from the design firm had input into the mascot. 

In any event, it reeks of design-by-commitee (or worse, "this is what the consultant ultimately recommended") where no one on the committee thought to say "Why would we use an effect meant to make a 2-D design simulate 3-D on something that's actually 3-D?" 

Also, for some reason I've seen a lot of commentary (not necessarily here) implying that Biondi wouldn't have let this happen. Which is funny, because this is pretty much all Biondi's doing. 

BTW we even made "Donnybrook" last night for the several dozen over-55 viewers who still watch it. ;) 

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1 hour ago, bonwich said:

Now, play nice, you two. You're most probably both right. If we dig into the original redesign thread we can find the name of the out-of-town design firm that did the full AD rebranding. At very worst the AD took the design standards book to Kincaid (or whomever) and said, "Make it match this." I'd bet (although I feel sorry for them if this is the outcome) that someone from the design firm had input into the mascot. 

In any event, it reeks of design-by-commitee (or worse, "this is what the consultant ultimately recommended") where no one on the committee thought to say "Why would we use an effect meant to make a 2-D design simulate 3-D on something that's actually 3-D?" 

Also, for some reason I've seen a lot of commentary (not necessarily here) implying that Biondi wouldn't have let this happen. Which is funny, because this is pretty much all Biondi's doing. 

BTW we even made "Donnybrook" last night for the several dozen over-55 viewers who still watch it. ;) 

Hello Bonwich. please just answer one question, if a total logo redesign (including the mascot) aimed at improving the image of a corporation or university is NOT planned by commitee (desing firm and corporate commitees, plural) using techniques like focus groups, how do you imagine the work is really done? Just asking. Do you really think the majority of University presidents, or their staff (including ADs) are well versed in design issues and can conceivably come up with anything that will modify public perception for the better? Again just asking and yes, it was two questions not one.

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It would be pretty weird if they didn't present an all-white version at whatever focus group they did. But if they did do an all-white version, somebody somewhere had to have looked at the two and said "I really prefer the demented two-face version." I would like to meet this person.

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20 minutes ago, Old guy said:

Hello Bonwich. please just answer one question, if a total logo redesign (including the mascot) aimed at improving the image of a corporation or university is NOT planned by commitee (desing firm and corporate commitees, plural) using techniques like focus groups, how do you imagine the work is really done? Just asking. Do you really think the majority of University presidents, or their staff (including ADs) are well versed in design issues and can conceivably come up with anything that will modify public perception for the better? Again just asking and yes, it was two questions not one.

Depends. I've seen it done where a very select group of people (yeah, sure, a committee, but a tiny one) did it for a billion-dollar corporation, and the ultimate decision was made by one person. Plus, um, Apple until a few years ago.

At universities, the presidents should just sign off. Best case, they have good, competent marketing departments that shepherd but also keep a tight rein on the process and provide the ultimate recommendation. 

As for focus groups, I can't find a really great article I just saw within the past few days, but here's a weaker version of the same concept.

http://www.austin-williams.com/blog/why-focus-groups-dont-work/ 

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44 minutes ago, slufan13 said:

Maybe they thought the new Billiken logo was such a hit that they cut back the resources on the actual Billiken and just figured "make it like the logo".

I have come around to the new logo. I really like the University wide type branding and initially did not overly care for the new Billiken logo, but am starting to like it. Unfortunately I don't think I will ever come around to liking the mascot. Not sure why they felt it had to match the new logo so closely (which they didn't even do a very good job of doing beyond the two tones and I guess the overall shape of the head maybe).

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