Swarthmore will celebrate its 150th birthday in 2014. One way students can contribute to the celebration is to participate in the Sesquicentennial Logo Contest, for which they are encouraged to submit designs or ideas of a logo that represents the anniversary. Student-designed symbols will be incorporated into the final logo which will be put on celebration materials and used to publicize related events.
Organized by the Sesquicentennial Planning Committee, the competition is mainly open to current students but anyone in the college community who has logo ideas is welcome to share them. Participants can design the logo or write down their ideas. The Committee requires the sketches, descriptions and advice to be submitted to 150years@swarthmore.edu by January 28, 2013 and it suggests participants to include “Swarthmore College” and “Sesquicentennial,” or “150” in the logo and make it creative, spatially compact and easily reproducible.
After the Committee collects students’ thoughts, there will be volunteers from the Swarthmore community, faculty and students making judgements on all the designs. The Committee already has a volunteer, Kathy Grace, who runs the college bookstore and has a lot of experience in designing things for the college, according to Maurice G. Eldridge ’61, Vice President for College and Community Relations and Executive Assistant to the President.
“It is a really unique opportunity to have your voice, your ideas and your designs preserved in the college history,” said Lisa Bao ’14, one of two student representatives on the committee, “The materials from the Sesquicentennial are going to the college archives.” She believes people who see the logo might be inspired by what the logo represents graphically and it is a chance for students to make an impact on such a large number of people.
Students’ ideas contributed to the design of the Phoenix mascot a few years ago. This time, “a wonderful eye-grabbing logo that we will all enjoy seeing for a year,” said Mr. Eldridge, is what the Committee expects to see.