No go for logo

Left logo courtesy Jordan Daniel Craig, right logo courtesy canadians.nhl.com

Mount Royal needed a logo to celebrate its 100th anniversary, and decided to hold a competition where students submit their designs. A panel of distinguished judges chose two finalists, and online voting was to decide the winner.

“We thought it was only fitting that a student design the face of our centennial,” said Suzanne Waddell, one of the competition’s organizers. That is, until they took a closer look at the logo of finalist Jordan Daniel Craig.

While looking for any possible trademark conflicts, Mount Royal’s external relations department discovered that Craig’s entry looked similar to the logo for the Montreal Canadiens centennial.

“It is what it is,” said Mount Royal media relations officer Fred Cheney. “It’s definitely something that we just cannot trademark whatsoever. If we were to try to trademark it then we would be in some serious trouble.”

Now, the judges must reconvene and select a new logo before online voting can begin. Craig, a first-year open studies student, told The Reflector before being disqualified that he had “a pretty big history of doing logo designs for companies.”

The other logo selected by judges on Feb. 26 was created by Charlotte Senini and Chelsea Watson, both are second-year students in the electronic publishing program.

“It’s really exciting. It’s a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity,” Senini said. She created the logo with classmate Watson “just for fun,” and didn’t expect it to be a top-two finalist.

Their logo reflects a sense of celebration over the centennial and community between the students of Mount Royal, according to Watson.

“Mount Royal definitely stands out for community,” she said. “We just wanted it to be fun and youthful and just stand out.”

The winner will be awarded $1,000 and see their logo become the “face” of

Mount Royal’s centennial, used in a cross-country marketing and communications campaign promoting the celebrations.

All the entries were whittled down to a final five. The judges that chose the top two were Dave Marshall, president of Mount Royal; Lorne Motley, editor-in-chief of the Calgary Herald; Tim Morris, VP consumer markets for Getty Images; Steve Buckingham, senior art director for design company Critical Mass; and Lucille Gnanasihamany, marketing director for Mount Royal College.