New UND President Leaves No Doubt on Nickname and Logo

After reading the comments of incoming University of North Dakota President Mark Kennedy's, there should be no doubt, the Fighting Hawks nickname issue has been finalized. He's not going to change the name or the logo. While some will continue to draw different version's of the Fighting Hawks logo, the newly designed logo will remain as UND official logo.

Wade Rupard, Grand Forks Herald --- UND's new president has a message for the university's community and fans: The Fighting Hawks name and logo are here to stay.

In an interview with the Herald, Mark Kennedy, who began his tenure as UND's president Friday, said the debate about the school's nickname and logo have distracted it from focusing on academic priorities. When asked if he plans to stick with the Fighting Hawks name and logo, Kennedy said "yes and yes."

Thoughts?  Like it or not, that's UND's official nickname and logo.

We're Getting Closer to a New Logo

Good Monday Morning. After being sick for half the week and out of town, I am catching up on a few things. First, I am interested in seeing what the new logo looks like. I’ve said in the past, blow the new logo design and the hockey fans will never, ever get behind and embrace the new logo. While the other programs and sports fans have sort of embraced the new nickname. The UND hockey fans have been skeptical and slow to accept the Fighting Hawks nickname. Personally, I thought Fighting Hawks was the best choice of five bad logo options. I would recommend dropping Fighting from the nickname. If I had a choice, no nickname would have been the best option.

Former North Dakota Governor and current Interim President Ed Schafer had some interesting things to say about the nickname process.

Anna Burleson, Grand Forks Herald – Schafer said he isn't bothered by the continued popularity of the Fighting Sioux nickname but wishes the process of selecting the Fighting Hawks name had been done in a more professional way.

"It's a good nickname and we're going to build value to it, and in 10 years or so it's going to be very meaningful to the university, but we're not starting out saying this is really meaningful to North Dakota," he said. "It's not some unique special thing North Dakota has so we have to build value to that final nickname and logo. That's going to take longer and it's going to be harder to do than if you'd put the elements in up front."

The process involved two committees working for more than a year, accepting more than 1,000 submissions from across the country, which were then narrowed down and voted on by various stakeholder groups such as students, alumni, donors and university employees.

"We took 2,000 amateurs and said choose which one you want, so that's what we have," Schafer said.

I find Schafer's comment interesting. Thoughts?

Grand Forks Herald: Fighting Hawks Logo development Delayed by Championship

Anna Burleson from the Grand Forks Herald is reporting that we'll have to wait a little longer to get a new logo. I am sure many will be disappointed by the announcement. The nickname fiasco has become a gong show. What's a few more weeks, right? Some of us are interested in seeing what SME Inc. comes up with. If the University blows the design of the new logo, they could have a bigger mess.

The finalization of UND's new Fighting Hawks logo is about two weeks behind schedule.

Director of Brand Strategy and Development Conor O'Flaherty of SME Inc., the company working with the school to create the logo, said the delay is due to UND's men's hockey team competing in and winning the Frozen Four championship last month.

O'Flaherty said this means the logo will be finalized in mid-June instead of late May but the change won't have any impact on the planned rollout for the fall 2016 school year.

"We just slipped off timeline simply for the nice reason of UND going to win a national hockey championship, which tended to distract a lot of people," he said.

Some (unofficial) Concept Art Regarding the Fighting Hawks Logo

by Redwing77

I was just surfing around waiting for the start of the game and found this article on my Facebook feed.

It provides some concept art for the new "Fighting Hawks" logo done by a Dane Storrusten.  Sadly, I've been so busy with real world things that I have not kept up with whatever is going on with the logos so I'm not certain as to whether this is just "fan art" or art published by the actual company for public perusal.  However, I think both logos are interesting and both aren't doable.

The first logo:

Option 1:  The Screamin' Hawk

This has been dubbed the "Screamin' Hawk" by Mr. Storrusten.  I think it is a really neat logo... and completely and totally unadoptable.  Why?  Because interpretation outweighs intention.  There are feathers in the logo.  Feathers, ANY feathers, can be interpreted to having Native American meanings... so adopting this logo is straight up OUT.

The second logo, "The Thunderbird:"

Option 2:  The Thunderbird

This logo has strong similarities (though not the same, as commenters in the article suggest) to the Seattle Thunderbirds logo.  It's geometric and kindof clunky, in my opinion.  This option is, well, OUT for two reasons (there's a third but the third isn't PC so I'm omitting it):  First, it's, again, an allusion to Native Americans... this time Native American totem pole artwork native to the Pacific Northwest.

This brings us to the second reason:  the way to get out of the PC idiocy ISN'T to simply relocate our Native American symbolism.  Last time I checked, Montana and Idaho separated North Dakota from the Pacific Northwest.

Conclusion:

Options 1 and 2 on Goalie masks

These two logos are, by no means, the ONLY logos out there.  I'm not even convinced that these logos are even under consideration to begin with.  That being said, if it DID come down to Option 1 or Option 2, Option 1 is by far the better option.  And it isn't even close.