Tony Brook and Spin ignore the form with stencil-based redesign for UCA

You may remember the outcry when the University of California changed its logo – 54,000 people signed a petition demanding it be withdrawn and the university eventually complied. It’s now seen as the definitive model of a redesign perfect storm, which must impact on any designer approaching a similar project.

But if Tony Brook and his Spin team had any trepidation when they started work for The University for the Creative Arts, it doesn’t show in the results. The designers embarked on “an extensive research and consultation phase” which crucially included students as well as the university’s management, trustees and lecturers.

They found (again in an interesting counterpoint to the UCA furore) that there “was no affection” for the “corporate, dated and deadly dull” former identity, which it was widely felt “represented none of the spirit, enthusiasm, philosophy or capabilities of the University and its campuses.”

The starting point for the new identity was the stencil, and the new look and feel is extrapolated from this ubiquitous bit of design kit. Not only is the new identity designed to provide a cohesive visual structure under which the four campuses (Canterbury, Epsom, Farnham and Rochester) be given room to breathe, it’s also seen as a set of building blocks from which the look can be evolved – “Its creative potential has no end and can be developed year on year,” the designers say.

The work of Spin will be celebrated in the next Unit Editions book due out in the summer. Adrian Shaughnessy, who runs Unit with Tony Brook, said that monographs of contemporary studios were deemed unviable by mainstream publishers because so much imagery is available online but this title promises to be special.