Linfield’s new logo, “The power of small,” was revealed April 20, to the dismay and derision of much of the student body. The Review is similarly disappointed.
The slogan almost sounds demeaning, as if the school needs to be consoled in light of its small stature. While being “the little college that could” is certainly touching, is it too much to ask to have a little power behind our name? Linfield is a college, not an elementary school.
And there’s no need to go into detail on where every male student’s thoughts go upon hearing “the power of small.”
“Small” is too easily associated with cute, timid and insignificant. As much as we (and this slogan) would like to think that good things come in small packages, this is simply not what people immediately associate with “small.” A brand’s immediate effect needs to be positively impactful because people rarely take the time to analyze the deeper meaning behind a slogan. If we want to emphasize small class sizes at Linfield, the slogan may as well be “We have small class sizes.” Unreasonable as that is, it would certainly draw the positive attention of prospective students more than the vagueness of “The power of small.”
“Small what? And how is small powerful?” they’re likely to ask. We all may know that “small” is referring to our small class sizes and small student body, but how are others supposed to know that?
As soon as people start questioning a slogan, it has failed. A good slogan is simple, immediate and easy to remember. “The power of small” is short and easy to remember, but it’s not simple or immediate because of its ambiguity.
It’s true that some of Linfield’s best aspects are its small class sizes and small student body, but these hardly encompass the entirety of Linfield’s image. Not that our slogan needs to cover every positive aspect of the college, but aren’t there more general concepts we can use to promote ourselves? We feel as if the firm, Brand Navigation, maybe latched on to the idea of small with alacrity when, in reality, Linfield is more than just small. We don’t draw our pride from the size of Linfield; it comes instead from our “large” sense of community, our “large” athletic success and our “large” academic achievements, despite our size. We’re a big deal.
Come to think of it, how much can Brand Navigation even know about Linfield? They obviously did extensive research, but can they know much more than the average prospective student researching potential schools?
No matter how much research anyone does on Linfield, it is difficult to fully understand the college without being a part of it. So why entrust the image of Linfield to an outside organization, which can only know about as much as a typical prospective student? Not to mention, we’re paying them (presumably a large amount of money, since it’s undisclosed) to do so.
Who would know more about Linfield than those who learn, teach and administer here? We have capable business, mass communication and art departments. Why not let them have a crack at coming up with a brand for the college and free of charge at that? The worst that could happen is they come up with something awful, and it’s rejected (at no expense to us).
Even if the project were not assigned to them, wouldn’t it be helpful if they were more involved in the process somehow?
Sometimes people assume that paying for something to be done professionally means it will automatically be done perfectly, but clearly this is not always the case; we should be open to alternatives.
To be blunt, “The power of small” has to go. It was poorly conceived, is embarrassing to students and does not say much for our college. Linfield deserves “bigger” and better.
-The Review Editorial Board