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A Lesson for Designers: When a Logo Redesign References Slavery

When good design turns bad, Part 2

By Rain Noe - June 18, 2020

Thomas Jefferson, chief author of the Declaration of Independence, slave owner and slave trader, 3rd President of the United States, lawyer and architect, founded the University of Virginia in 1819. He designed the school's architecture curriculum as well as the campus, incorporating the serpentine wall design that we looked at here.

Jefferson presumably chose the design for its thrift. In the document below, owned by UVA, we can see Jefferson working out the calculations for how many bricks would be saved by using the one-brick-thick serpentine design (roughly 25%, it turns out).

As mentioned in the previous post, the design was invented by the Dutch. But we Americans--like the North Koreans who believe Kim Il-Sung invented the light bulb--love attributing inventions to our Founding Fathers. Thus the design of the serpentine wall is commonly and incorrectly attributed to Jefferson, just as library steps are said to have been invented by Benjamin Franklin.

The walls are quite attractive.

In 2018 Theresa Williams, then-President of UVA, commissioned a study to look into the University's historic ties with slavery. In the resultant "Slavery and the University" report, details about the intended function of the serpentine walls were revealed:

"Jefferson's architectural plan for the University created distinct zones for the students and for the enslaved. The enslaved were to live and work in the basements and in the garden work yards where students were in theory to have little reason to venture.

"…The high walls of the gardens were designed to limit the ability of the enslaved to see beyond them and to essentially isolate the enslaved from contact with anyone outside the walls….

"The walls were also intended as barriers separating people owned by one faculty member or hotelkeeper from another and designed to make it easier for their owners to monitor their enslaved people.

"Jefferson's design, in theory, was intended to make it easy for the professor or the hotelkeeper to watch the enslaved as they worked."

I have no idea how widely-read the report was, and if the average UVA student realizes those pretty walls were designed to keep slaves isolated and "easier…to monitor." What I do know is that UVA recently partnered with Nike to redesign the logo for their athletic teams, the Cavaliers. Earlier versions of the logo featured a "V" over crossed sabers:

The unknown designer(s) of the new logo added facets to the V, and added a wavy handle grip to the sabers…"to mimic the serpentine walls:"

The new design was released on April 24th. Backlash ensued the same day.

Unfortunately it took nearly two months (and, well, nationwide anti-racism protests) until UVA finally announced, this week, that they are changing the logo to get rid of the serpentine detail.

"After the release of our new logos on April 24th, I was made aware of the negative connotation between the serpentine walls and slavery," [Virginia athletics director Carla] Williams said. "I was not previously aware of the historical perspective indicating the original eight-foot-high walls were constructed to mask the institution of slavery and enslaved laborers from public view.

"Over the last few weeks, I have worked to better educate myself and that education will continue.

"There was no intent to cause harm, but we did, and for that I apologize to those who bear the pain of slavery in our history. As such, we have redesigned the logos to remove that detail. All other aspects of the logos will remain the same."

The latest design, with the handle fixed.

The subtle difference between the two designs.

This story illustrates a challenge that designers are going to face, moving forward. While we do not know the motives of the designer(s) of the logo in adding the serpentine detail, it is possible that it sprung from ignorance--the designer spots the serpentine walls during a campus visit, does not know their significance, and simply thinks it a "neat" detail to reference in the design. Should they have been more curious? Ought they have taken the next step and asked someone "Hey, these walls are cool--what are they about?"

Even if they had, there's no guarantee they'd have gotten the answer. If we take Williams at face value she, the school's athletic director, didn't even know what the walls were designed for.

If we assume the above scenario is true, then it means that if the designer had done more research and asked more questions, this entire situation might have been avoided.

Question for you all: Is this the designer's responsibility? Can we do better?

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Mike Nelson Pedde

5 years ago

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It's a tough call. The walls in relation to this particular place and the reason for which they were built bring up bad memories. That's understandable. But the wall is just a wall. It's a more efficient way of building a brick wall, invented in a different time, in a different place. The walls themselves serve different purposes today, and the time, money and energy to tear down the walls and replace them with something else is ludicrous in a time when so many are suffering from so much. If the walls stand as a sumbol, change the symbol. Yes, the walls were built to keep us contained, but we rose above them.

Look at the swastika. A lot of people associate the swastika with the Nazis. That's unfortunate because the symbol has been used for thousands of years among different cultures. To the Hopi it's the symbol of the four winds, an agent of change. In India and beyond the swastika has represented divinity, auspiciousness, peace and more for thousands of years. It was because of this that the Nazis co-opted it. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Swastika

The bottom line is that symbols themselves are innocuous. They have no built-in meaning. We - individually and collectively - assign attributes to them. What does 💗 mean to you? How about 💔? What if I suggested the latter means healing, coming together? Would that change your view?

The book Strandloper tells the story of a young man from England who is sent to a prison camp in Autralia. Beyond the camp is bush; there are few restrictions because everyone knows to walk off into the bush is death. But our young man has a compass, obtained from a friend, and he plans to use it to walk back home to England. What he has is a piece of paper with a circle subdivided into quarters. Around the outside of the circle are N, E, W, S.

He's almost dead from dehydration when he's found by an aboriginal man. The man looks at the paper and sees the circle of life, the four Directions, the symbols for lightning, the snake, and more. He takes the young man back to his family.

Did you know the aboriginal people of Australia were officially recognized as human in 1967?

Symbols are all around us; what we make of them and what they mean - to us as individuals - is a personal choice. Perspective IS Everything.

My 2¢.

Mike.

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Ross Oliver

5 years ago

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A graphic design detail that references the walls is deemed unacceptable, but the walls themselves remain standing? I don't understand that.

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Ray Jepson

5 years ago

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I think it also touches upon how we reinvent our surroundings. Those walls are hundreds of years old, but the civilization that brings meaning to them is changing.

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Burr Hubbell

4 years ago

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Serpentine walls were not invented by the Dutch. They date at least to 3400 years ago as can be seen in the recently excavated "Lost City" near Luxor: https://www.nationalgeographic.com/history/article/lost-golden-city-luxor-discovered-archaeologists-egypt

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Brenda Knepper

4 years ago

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I’m a designer and art professor who has created logos and branding programs for a number of prominent institutions and universities. I think it is paramount that designers or their creative directors do thorough historical research on elements that are going to be incorporated into a logo that will represent the institution or its programs for, usually, a significant period of time and that will be prominently displayed on the organization’s collateral.

In this case, the serpentine walls on the campus are very beautiful, despite their original function, and I can understand a designer being drawn to incorporate the waves into the design because they are aesthetically pleasing. They were not only used on the sword handles, but also created a subtle texture in the logo background. However, I usually undertake a significant amount of research, often delving into archives, when designing logos and other graphic elements. If that kind of curiosity and interest in the history of the campus had gone into this project, the controversy associated with the walls may have become known prior to finalizing the design. It’s an embarrassment and shame that the racial issues were discovered or brought to light after the unveiling of the new logo.

I teach young designers that a very important part of the design process is research. Perhaps I’ll use this as an example in the future!

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