Another High Street Rebrand

woah
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bilky asko wrote:This is why I like The University of Hull's logo:
Image
Not only is it not solely text, but I don't think they've put it on any buildings - so any rebrand would mean that only printed stuff would have to be updated.
Shame the university itself is not as nice! Had a trip there a while back, it was pretty rubbish. Nor is Hull exactly an modern, exciting, culture enriched place! :D
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WillPS
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woah wrote:
bilky asko wrote:This is why I like The University of Hull's logo:
Image
Not only is it not solely text, but I don't think they've put it on any buildings - so any rebrand would mean that only printed stuff would have to be updated.
Shame the university itself is not as nice! Had a trip there a while back, it was pretty rubbish. Nor is Hull exactly an modern, exciting, culture enriched place! :D
I lived for a while South of the Humber, it wasn't great either. I guess that's Humberside a right off.
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ali.james
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WillPS wrote: Depends what you want from a university. When I looked for somewhere to study a web computing discipline there were only a handful of institutions offering such courses, and less still offering sandwich courses. Off the top of my head, one was Nottingham Trent, who I discounted immediately because I wanted to leave Nottingham; University of Wales Aberystwyth who I visited but found the facilities to be massively outdated and lecturers without a clear message to give me about the course they were offering and a couple of other random former polytechnics.

Sheffield Hallam had modern facilities (including a building which opened the month I started), charismatic but focussed lecturers and, most importantly for me, they offer a clear path toward the end-goal which is employability. I didn't go to university to get letters after my name - I went to university to get a professional level of understanding in an area I had long held an interest.

For my mind, the renaming of polytechnics to universities was a mistake - they are good at different things and I think positioning one as the other has just made it appear weaker.

I'd be interested to know what you're basing your "subpar" conclusion on.
I accept that for certain courses you may feel limited in your choice of institution. Indeed, I know one person, a computing student, who felt like their only real option was the University of Derby for the course they were after. They have, unfortunately, come to regret that decision, owing to the lack of resources, shoddy lecturing and so on. I've heard similar stories from other people who belong to ex-polytechnics and newer institutions.

Taking my subject, for example: the fact that Sheffield Hallam and other such institutions offer Law degrees for 300 UCAS points (BBB or thereabouts) and a crummy C grade in GCSE English is nothing short of deplorable. You cannot realistically expect to plunder through a Law degree, nor anything else worth the time/money investment, unless you have gone above and beyond top grades at A level. The introduction of supplementary tests such as the lnat and bmat tests goes to show the futility of today's university application process.

And back to the original point, I believe that this re-brand is a complete waste of money. The contemporary obsession over graphic design and branding is becoming so very tiresome. It's something that, five years ago, I was quite enthusiastic about. But having to sit back, to watch everything have its own branding board - and to see pots of money taken from misguided students and squandered like this - failed by the education system and by the job market - well, it's painful.
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Sput
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Dragging this back off-topic, whats "above and beyond the top grades at A-level"? I'm not convinced by your reasoning because they're such a one dimensional metric: some people (*hiyaa*) will have worked hard at poor schools to get *reasonable* but not outstanding grades and thrive at university.
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JAS84
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woah wrote:
bilky asko wrote:This is why I like The University of Hull's logo:
Image
Not only is it not solely text, but I don't think they've put it on any buildings - so any rebrand would mean that only printed stuff would have to be updated.
Shame the university itself is not as nice! Had a trip there a while back, it was pretty rubbish. Nor is Hull exactly an modern, exciting, culture enriched place! :D
Grr... :x

And by the way, there's a sign outside the university, next to the road entrance, rather than on the building itself.
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WillPS
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ali.james wrote:
WillPS wrote: Depends what you want from a university. When I looked for somewhere to study a web computing discipline there were only a handful of institutions offering such courses, and less still offering sandwich courses. Off the top of my head, one was Nottingham Trent, who I discounted immediately because I wanted to leave Nottingham; University of Wales Aberystwyth who I visited but found the facilities to be massively outdated and lecturers without a clear message to give me about the course they were offering and a couple of other random former polytechnics.

Sheffield Hallam had modern facilities (including a building which opened the month I started), charismatic but focussed lecturers and, most importantly for me, they offer a clear path toward the end-goal which is employability. I didn't go to university to get letters after my name - I went to university to get a professional level of understanding in an area I had long held an interest.

For my mind, the renaming of polytechnics to universities was a mistake - they are good at different things and I think positioning one as the other has just made it appear weaker.

I'd be interested to know what you're basing your "subpar" conclusion on.
I accept that for certain courses you may feel limited in your choice of institution. Indeed, I know one person, a computing student, who felt like their only real option was the University of Derby for the course they were after. They have, unfortunately, come to regret that decision, owing to the lack of resources, shoddy lecturing and so on. I've heard similar stories from other people
who belong to ex-polytechnics and newer institutions.

Taking my subject, for example: the fact that Sheffield Hallam and other such institutions offer Law degrees for 300 UCAS points (BBB or thereabouts) and a crummy C grade in GCSE English is nothing short of deplorable. You cannot realistically expect to plunder through a Law degree, nor anything else worth the time/money investment, unless you have gone above and beyond top grades at A level. The introduction of supplementary tests such as the lnat and bmat tests goes to show the futility of today's university application process.

And back to the original point, I believe that this re-brand is a complete waste of money. The contemporary obsession over graphic design and branding is becoming so very tiresome. It's something that, five years ago, I was quite enthusiastic about. But having to sit back, to watch everything have its own branding board - and to see pots of money taken from misguided students and squandered like this - failed by the education system and by the job market - well, it's painful.
I've never once regretted the decision I made to go to Hallam (and I'm not not one of these 'never look back' types I assure you!). Derby is indeed notoriously poor.

By comparing a law degree (a traditional academic discipline) you're sort of illustrating my point. Time had it that both Universities and Polytechnics could offer such courses for different purposes and different people and there would be no need for comparison. Now that they're both Universities offering degrees which they themselves award there's this notion that one is by necessity inferior to the other; the truth is they're not really the same thing at all.

On money wasting - I completely agree.
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ali.james
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Sput wrote:Dragging this back off-topic, whats "above and beyond the top grades at A-level"? I'm not convinced by your reasoning because they're such a one dimensional metric: some people (*hiyaa*) will have worked hard at poor schools to get *reasonable* but not outstanding grades and thrive at university.
My point was that to get into some universities, students have to get 3 As as a bare minimum and may even have to demonstrate further credentials. My law school requires LNAT and many medical schools have difficulty wading between the tons of applicants. As WillPS rightly says, the mishmash of polytechnics and universities has resulted in places that purport to do both well and as such, are prone to misguiding students. This is made all the worse by the fact that many of them will be charging the same high fee rates.

I didn't say anything about there being an implicit link between school grades and university performance. I too went to a really defective secondary school.
bilky asko
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woah wrote:
Shame the university itself is not as nice! Had a trip there a while back, it was pretty rubbish. Nor is Hull exactly an modern, exciting, culture enriched place! :D
There have been, and is currently, a lot of refurbishments going on, so some of the buildings have wonderful interiors, and awful exteriors.

Whilst Hull isn't the best city in the world, it's hardly the utter shit hole that some people describe it as. People talk to you (with a bit of "fahve", "nahne" and "err nerr" in the mix), and there are genuinely nice places in Hull. East Hull isn't as awful as it's made out to be - places like Bridlington are much, much worse.
JAS84 wrote: Grr... :x

And by the way, there's a sign outside the university, next to the road entrance, rather than on the building itself.
Yes, I'd forgotten about that - although I think it's just type rather than the logo.
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nidave
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Saw this
Image

Hopefully they don't butcher it like the old logo. There is no distinction between the words.. They could have at least used a different colour or made one word bold.

Larger version: http://up.metropol247.co.uk/nidave/WP_000442.jpg
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WillPS
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nidave wrote:Saw this
Image

Hopefully they don't butcher it like the old logo. There is no distinction between the words.. They could have at least used a different colour or made one word bold.

Larger version: http://up.metropol247.co.uk/nidave/WP_000442.jpg
Is that definitely not an old logo?

They certainly don't look after the tick brand though - they seem happy to Shatliff it to fill any shape.
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Jake
Posts: 215
Joined: Tue 27 Jun, 2006 13.00
Location: Derbyshire

WillPS wrote:
nidave wrote:Saw this
Image

Hopefully they don't butcher it like the old logo. There is no distinction between the words.. They could have at least used a different colour or made one word bold.

Larger version: http://up.metropol247.co.uk/nidave/WP_000442.jpg
Is that definitely not an old logo?

They certainly don't look after the tick brand though - they seem happy to Shatliff it to fill any shape.
Corporate site are using it http://www.carpetright.plc.uk/
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