King's College London to be renamed King's London?

Just logged onto my school email (I'm a student at KCL) and received an email that said, long story short, that King's College London is going to be "relabelled" King's London. Don't think I'm too crazy about the new name, but am curious as to what other people think, regardless of whether you're from King's or not? Do you think it would make much of a difference?

(edited 9 years ago)

Reply 1

DrumChops

Sounds less prestigious

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Reply 2

Gaiaphage

Sounds a bit weird to me, if someone said to me "I go to King's London" I'd be thinking "King's what though? King's School? King's College? King's Pub?"

Reply 3

iceflyier

So I'm not the only one who thinks it's really weird. Personally I think it's pretty unnecessary, too - and apparently the school is spending 300k on this endeavor. Nice knowing where all those loans/savings are going..

Reply 4

Helloworld_95

Why? King's College is their brand name, I would understand it if they were detaching from UoL and calling themselves King's University or just King's College, but removing the College part seems like a bad idea.

Stupid....

Evident of how universities love wasting money.

They should be spending it on student experience/facilities instead.

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Reply 7

Klix88

Sounds about as odd as "University London". Wonder how many millions the rebranding is going to cost?

Reply 8

Helen_in_Ireland

Trinity College Dublin has been undergoing an image change recently, it came under fire in April when a new logo was proposed - it took the ancient shield and turned it into something that you would do using clip art! A newer update was published yesterday, much closer to the old logo but using blue and white instead of the traditional blue and yellow - I think that this one will stick.

However, TCD is now emphasising the 'University of Dublin' portion of it's name as seemingly the 'College' part was confusing overseas investors - apparently they were confusing the term 'College' as being of lesser stature than a university.

Personally I think that 'King's' is not as prestigious as 'King's College'. It would be interesting to see their reasoning.

Reply 9

iceflyier

Original post by Klix88

Sounds about as odd as "University London". Wonder how many millions the rebranding is going to cost?

Ha - apparently 300k, urgh. If they reckon they've got that much money to burn then I think I want a refund. King's London sounds like a pub, and the new logo looks like something out of that font thing in Word.

Reply 10

Klix88

Original post by iceflyier

300k sounds very conservative. Consultants, physical signage (buildings, rooms, direction boards, vehicles etc), website/associated web pages, dissemination/implementation of the digitised logo, stationery.... I'd be gobsmacked if it came in for that sort of cost. After a couple of decades in the IT industry - including a couple of corporate rebrandings - I reckon that the necessary IT/digital changes are likely to cost more than 300k on their own.

Although if the new KL logo's that hamfisted, they may well have economised on the consultancy fees and given the graphic rebranding work to an intern in HR. That's what my Masters uni rebranding looked like - and that cost several million! Basically they did away with a slick stylised graphic and replaced it with the name of the uni in a standard Word font, in the corporate shade of blue. Ridiculous.

Reply 11

iceflyier

Original post by Klix88

http://roarnews.co.uk/wordpress/?p=15450 That's what the new logo's going to look like apparently, but word is the powers that be have gotten wind of our disapproval, so they'll "rethink it."

It's interesting to hear that your uni was rebranded as well - was this Lancaster? I'm sure you mentioned it before but I'm afraid I've forgotten :colondollar:

Reply 12

Klix88

Original post by iceflyier

http://roarnews.co.uk/wordpress/?p=15450 That's what the new logo's going to look like apparently, but word is the powers that be have gotten wind of our disapproval, so they'll "rethink it."

Good grief - that really does look like a work experience kiddie's Mum knocked it up in their lunchtime. Shonky. A "rethink" is certainly in order!

It's interesting to hear that your uni was rebranded as well - was this Lancaster? I'm sure you mentioned it before but I'm afraid I've forgotten :colondollar:

Nah, I'm darn sarf rather than oop north. A few unis have rebranded over the past ten years. They seem to think that if they design a logo which can be reproduced using standard Word functions, it's the key to cheaper oncosts. However they have to change so many physical instances, that it could take decades to recoup the initial outlay in savings. During which time there will doubtless be several more pointless rebrandings.

(edited 9 years ago)

Reply 13

Helen_in_Ireland

Original post by iceflyier

Thanks for the link. It was interesting to read the Principal's reasoning regarding the understanding of the word 'College'. This is the same reason as Trinity College, Dublin (see post above). Perhaps a better way to promote understanding would be to promote the University of London as an entity, and to emphasise the unity of the UL degree across the constituent colleges? The prestige and admissions process are of course entirely separate and that should be noted too.