Tuesday, October 29, 2024

Goodbye, George Washington’s signature

Washington College in Chestertown, Maryland is changing its logo to something more readable. So it’s goodbye to George Washington’s signature. The school’s vice president for marketing and communications explains:

Because cursive writing is no longer taught universally in K-12 education, the script — especially this highly stylized version — was difficult to read and not immediately recognizable for many prospective students. This was counterproductive when it came to name recognition and identity.
Granted, the signature logo is not especially venerable — it’s been in use since 2013. And granted, it might not be easily readable at reduced size. But still. It think it looks, or looked, pretty cool.


Related reading
All OCA handwriting posts (Pinboard)

[Follow the link above to see the new logo.]

comments: 2

Anonymous said...

a few years ago i had a teacher tell me that they no longer taught cursive in school so she used it to write notes as students can't read it. i learned how to read text upside down-- always helpful trick to know. and how to write backwards so that your writing would appear correct in a mirror.
kirsten

Michael Leddy said...

I like the idea of secret writing — my favorite book in boyhood was Alvin’s Secret Code — but who knew it could be so easy? :) Another path this school might take could bring in some sort of informal pedagogy in handwriting. A “What’s in a name?“ webpage that parses the signature letter by letter. A friendly competition in writing out W’s signature (from memory). I’d bite, but I was never a typical student.