SUNY Geneseo should utilize its seal more in branding and merchandise

Photo courtesy of SUNY Geneseo

While I’m sure almost everyone attending SUNY Geneseo has seen the college’s logo—the clock tower of Sturges Hall sitting above the year of the college’s founding and a highly stylized depiction of the Genesee Valley all enveloped by a shield—perhaps fewer have seen the college’s seal with as much frequency as the logo.

The official seal of SUNY Geneseo is an abstract depiction of the Genesee Valley, with the waves under the “flame of knowledge” representing the Genesee River, and  the leaves that encompass the flame representing the “rural setting” of the Genesee Valley, according to the college’s Office of College Communications and Marketing. When seen, it is usually quite colorful, and I personally find such an “artsy” seal to be very fitting for the rural liberal arts college that SUNY Geneseo is.

I can understand the preference by the college towards what the Harvard Business Review terms a “nondescriptive logo,” this logo being an attempt to enhance the SUNY Geneseo’s distinctiveness, according to Livingston County News. It's short and sweet to grab one’s attention. Overall, this preference towards the logo follows the trend seen in marketing and advertising over the past few years towards simplification in logo design and typography, per Generator Design.

Yet, research shows that more complex or “descriptive” logos, as they are termed by Harvard Business Review, tend to be more well-received by consumers. According to Harvard Business Review, brands that used more complex logos appeared more authentic to consumers, and received more sales. While I’m using research from a corporate setting, I believe similar views can be reached among college students at SUNY Geneseo regarding brand simplification.

Back in 2012, when SUNY Geneseo was changing its wordmark from the “wave” logo that had been in use since 1986 to the one we see today, per an archived page of Encompass Magazine, a petition went out on change.org calling on the college to retain its “wave” wordmark. In the petition, comments were recorded from those who opposed the change, several people calling the new logo “boring,” “plain,” “mundane,” and having “no character at all,” per the change.org petition.

This petition was signed by 1,357 people, which—if considered to mostly represent students as the petition starter Philip Romano was a psychology major at the time, according to Complex Networks—is around 24 percent of the student population during the college’s 2012–2013 academic year, using data from the college’s Office of Institutional Research. This is a pretty noticeable minority of students that opposed the implementation of a new wordmark.

Clearly, this follows with the research done by Harvard Business Review—that people generally prefer more “descriptive” and complex logos.

On a personal level, I prefer the college seal to the logo. I feel it has more character and a more distinctive design to the somewhat bland, corporate-looking logo. The seal has more color, and I find that the more intricate design of the leaves, flame, and waves attracts the eye better than the simplistic, dark, monocolor logo. Of course, this is very subjective, and I’m sure others see different things in both the college seal and logo.

Now, while I do not imagine SUNY Geneseo ever discarding its logo, or the merchandise it helps produce, in full, I feel the campus community could benefit from a more liberal use of the college seal in campus spaces and in merchandise sold. Maybe even for a “retro style” merchandise sale I could see the seal being a very viable addition to SUNY Geneseo’s merchandise and branding.

I have heard other students at the SUNY Geneseo Branding Exercise I attended back in September 2025 speak very positively about the seal, and argue that it should be utilized more on college merchandise. I have also seen students walking around campus wearing SUNY Geneseo shirts and crewnecks that contain the Geneseo seal. From my knowledge in hunting for older SUNY Geneseo merchandise, these shirts and crewnecks are clothing no longer in production, that have ended up at thrift stores and on eBay listings.

The popularity of using the seal in merchandise is there among the student body, and I hope SUNY Geneseo sees worth in returning to its once much more prevalent use in branding, as the data is there for more complex logo design. SUNY Geneseo’s seal is a great logo that deserves a much more prevalent position in the limelight.