A stern and distinctive face looks out of a circle, with a strong and bold serif font with the large word ‘bath’ underlined, leaving you in no doubt about the name of the university.

Typography

Steady and solid serif face for the University portion of the logotype, with a different font (or treatment) for the word ‘Bath’. From the slightly italicized serifs on the T to the protruding bowl of the B the wordmark’s slightly rougher, perhaps antique character integrates well with the textures in the gorgon’s head. Not sure that the underline on the word really adds very much apart from marking the boundary of the wordmark.

Imagery

Taken from the university’s guidelines

The Gorgon’s Head used in the University of Bath logo is taken from the University’s full Coat of Arms. The head can be traced back to Bath’s Roman past, with the amalgamation of Sul, Goddess of Hot Springs and Minerva, Goddess of Learning, leading to the creation of Sulis-Minerva, the Goddess associated with Bath. The “male face” shown is a local or Celtic variation of the more conventional mythological gorgon Medusa, which can be found on the shield of Minerva, as featured in the Coat of Arms.

So, probably the oldest lineage of a logo that we’ve seen so far and a nice job of the rendering of the head manages to create a stone like texture which is really well suited to such a distinctive image and contrasts with boldness of the text.

Also worth mentioning the recently undertaken redesign of the Bath website where the logo is tinted and provides a clear indication of the institution, but the remains in the background, thus not crowding for the users’ attention.

Tagged : English , Brand Guidelines , 1994-group , Blue , Uppercase , Serif , GW4 , South West , Circle

Read the Wikipedia entry Visit website Read the brand guidelines