Maybe it was the toilet bowl comments.
But the new University of California logo that was unveiled last week - mostly to groans and comments that the "C" nesting in a shield-shaped "U" looked sort of like a toilet bowl - has been scrapped.
That's according to a UC statement released Friday by Daniel Dooley, who said that the monogram had received so much criticism over the past few days that the 10-campus university system decided to "suspend further use of the monogram."
He did add, however, that he thought the "design element" would have won "wide acceptance" over time. But Dooley said that the loud cries - and the length of time it may take to win hearts and minds- just weren't worth it. He did admit that the criticism had been "swift and brutal."
In addition to looking like a toilet, others compared the new logo to a corporate signature. Lt. Gov. Gavin Newsom - voting member of the UC Board of Regents - simply said "Ugh." One UC Berkeley student simply said last week that it was "weird." More than 54,000 petitioners had signed a document to say, "ick."
Many thought that the image was not a fitting replacement for the stately university seal, Dooley said, even though the university said the old logo and the new were meant to coexist. Dooley said while the university had defended its decision for a few days, leaders have "finally relented."
He said that the controversy had been fueled in large part by an "unfortunate and false narrative," which framed the matter as an "either-or choice between a venerated UC seal and a newly designed monogram."
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In fact, Dooley said the graphic element in question was never intended to replace the official seal that still graces diplomas and other appropriate documents. Rather, he said, "it was to provide a graphic cue to distinguish system wide communications materials from those of individual campuses."
Newsom liked the move. He tweeted: "Power of the people! #UC to "suspend further use" of new logo. I applaud UC for listening and pulling logo."
There was no immediate word on how much UC spent on printing the logo on various documents, but Dooley said that the simple logo didn't cost much to design.
