Best laid plans
There we are. Now you know. The Open College of the Arts has a new logo. The plan was to unveil the logo on Monday. And then the December copy of the BJP plopped through the letter box. In November. And in it, an advertisement we thought nobody would see until well into December.
[Original image by Jeffrey Martin from his Art of Photography submission]
There are actually two logos. The main logo (at the top of this post) and the contact logo (below) where we give the telephone number and the main web address.
So what’s different and why the change?
The principle difference is we have simplified the logo to emphasise the ‘A’, which is indicative of our passion for the arts, and included the full college name. Since the last logo refresh in 2008, it has become clear that search engines are the way that many new students find us. If you search for OCA you will find it a crowded place. We do not expect anyone will stop using ‘the OCA’ as the familiar way of referring to us. But we think the new logo is clearer, retains the passion while looking more professional.
The logo is part of bigger body of branding work and you will see other presentational changes in the coming months. The one thing you can be assured is that this was not, and will not be, a costly exercise for the College. The development work was shared by our in-house designer Leanne Oates, working with trustee Simon Hill who is Managing Director of Vidar Media who gave his time freely.
I often sign my name as A but fortunately in a different rather more abstract way to your new logo A … look forward to seeing other new branding!
What I see is a brush stroke which implies painting … painting seems to be regarded as the art yet I wonder if this is really so or has ever been the case!?
the A stands for A as in first class; the big A also elevates the status of art!
Looks good. Can we students get a copy of logo to use as template please?
well done Leanne and Simon, different enough to matter but not so different to cause confusion
An excellent piece of work which retains the brand recognition while being graphically even stronger and apposite to boot.
It reminds me of a client of mine that was commissioned to redesign the label of an iconic bottled beer brand. When they proudly showed it to me I couldn’t see the difference from the old one until they showed me the previous label, it was completely different. Their brief had been to redesign the label so that it looked the way people thought it did in focus groups. They succeeded.
Stylish ad and very effective image too, well done Jeffrey!
Ditto
Very to the point and retaining the 0CA brand red.
Thank you, Clive. And thanks to Leanne for choosing my image and I suppose to the anonymous assessor who tagged my photo for possible use. This is the first photograph I have had published, a nice finish to the assessment process,
I want the logo! Where can I download it?
If you’re on this page you’ve got it.
Yiann and Cathie
There is now a copy of the logo to download in the Student Website. Go to Research>Resouces>Logos and right click the file to save it to your computer.
Alternatively click here and it will take you straight there
Thanks Gareth!
This is just so cool, its really exciting times to see the OCA growing and to gain stronger brand recognition. The advert in the BJP is brilliant…
Perhaps the next stop would be a group exhibition of the graduates work as part of Freerange at Brick Lane along with the other Universities.
Yes please!
Ditto…
Can we still wear the old badges?
You could Olivia, but I wouldn’t advise it. Keep it carefully so you can sell it on eBay in the future 🙂
Olivia – you do love those badges. I am sure you will be the first to receive ‘A’ badges in due course. We’ll be the A team on study days. You’ll still have to be the Keeper of the Badges though.