Within the Student Advisory Committee, there has been a strong contingent of people focused on branding the Learning Commons with a name and visual identity that will be recognizable and interesting to students while still emphasizing the Commons’ purpose as a centralized place for services. Of the nearly two dozen suggested names,  Bear Hub, Bear Central, and Bear Commons were given serious serious consideration. However, a stroke of genius from Jeff Morrissey quickly established a front-runner: The Bear CLAW (the Center for Learning And Writing).  Given the enthusiasm for the Bear CLAW as a name, James Mulvenon, a graphic designer on the Student Advisory Committee quickly produced a number of logos, including the following:

Bear CLAW logo with Paw

Bear Claw Logo with inverted paw.

A slightly more formal take on the Bear Claw Logo.

This more formal take on the Bear Claw logo was quite popular with some members of the Student Advisory Committee, especially when thought of as letterhead.

This logo, featuring only the claws of the bear paw, was very popular.

The logo with just the claws was quite popular, and the Student Advisory Committee proposed it be the official  logo of the Learning Commons – or, as we should probably get accustomed to calling it – the Center for Learning And Writing.