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In accordance with the Board’s direction, yesterday Executive Director Adam Blistein submitted the filings necessary for the legal change of the Association’s name to Society for Classical Studies. We are, of course, announcing the advent of this transition first to the membership; but will also distribute a press release to relevant organizations, publications, and individuals within and outside the field of Classical Studies. We expect to receive confirmation of the name change from the State of Delaware (where we are incorporated) in about a week, and the new name will gradually appear in stationery and our credit card and checking accounts over the coming month.

I am pleased to share with you the new logo in the attached PowerPoint document that shows several versions of the logo as it will appear in various media and on our new stationery. As directed by the Board, the Name Change Committee began planning for our organizational transition to the Society for Classical Studies and started the process of logo design in October 2013. We have devoted almost eight months to this effort in order to give the transition the careful deliberation warranted by such a momentous change.

The logo you see is the result of considerable work with the Name Change Committee and Adam, our designer Judy Lamirand, and our transition consultant Laura Mandeles. We considered many, many options through five rounds of refinement with the designer. This process of understanding and translating an evolution in our organizational identity into a graphic design was quite challenging, and led to many interesting and clarifying conversations about how we might serve and communicate with a range of non-member audiences while continually improving our service to members and the field. I am enthusiastic about the result; it is a very good design that will serve the SCS well for many years. The logo fulfills important objectives developed by the Committee:

  • Clean design that is adaptable to different formats and media.
  • Incorporates a graphic image that has “movement” and relates to the Classical World; the chosen image is evocative of the key design on Greek vases, of scrolls, and of Ionic columns; and for the particularly observant, it also suggests the SCS acronym.
  • Combines the graphic image with a distinctive typeface so that, in appropriate circumstances, each can stand on its own as a design element (e.g., the image alone could be a watermark across pages of the Annual Meeting program book, or part of a second page header in a letter).
  • Retains the Greek motto as an essential design element – those who can read and understand it will appreciate it; for those who don’t read Greek, it will reinforce the identity of the organization and evoke the Classical world.
  • Accommodates the tag line “Founded as….” either as part of the logo itself or as an accompaniment to the logo elsewhere in the document, publication, web page, etc. (as in the stationery sample).

The web site is critical aspect of the transition, but of course making these changes is more complicated than redoing printed documents; so, we have been working on that in stages. Last year Information Architect Sam Huskey laid the groundwork for the transition by moving the site to a content management system (Drupal) which is both easier for volunteers and staff to use and which gives us access to a wider variety of outside experts accustomed to working with that system. Michael Gagarin, Adam, and Sam collaborated with me to identify Confluence Corporation of Washington, DC to redesign the web site, implement the new name and color scheme throughout, select a new URL, and make improvements and additions to functionality that will accommodate new features targeted to a variety of audiences.

Creating greater flexibility, search capacity, and functionality will enhance our content and its accessibility to different types of users, and facilitate communications that establish SCS as the public face of Classics in North America.

I am very grateful to Sam for the many hours he put in preparing a request for web site redesign proposals, reviewing almost two dozen submissions, and leading us to the choice of Confluence. Sam has also taken on the task of integrating the new name and logo into the current web site as an interim measure, with the more complete overhaul targeted for completion by early fall.

It is a special privilege to be president of our Society as we take this significant step and establish a new level of leadership in Classical Studies. I look forward to moving ahead together and I welcome, as always, your thoughts and comments.

Kathryn Gutzwiller, President