Please click here to read an open letter to the Williston Northampton community by Traci Wolfe, director of communications.
Each time Physical Plant wants to use a new decal with the Williston Northampton School seal—for a sign, a building, or on the side of a van—Barb Shepard, the administrative assistant, must first sit down and peel tiny pieces of sticker from around every tiny, wavy line.
For five years, the athletic department has worked hard to make uniforms, coaching wear, and travel suits consistent, but Mark Conroy, director of athletics, has noticed that teams still purchase shirts and other gear in odd colors, with designs entirely their own.
When Matt Spearing, director of student activities, ordered rally towels recently, he asked the supplier to come up with ideas for what a print of the school’s mascot might look like. He didn’t have any other image to base it on, he said.
“There was no consistency of font or format,” Spearing said. “It was just what we thought looked good.”
No matter where you looked on campus, one thing was clear, the Williston logo was in need of a makeover.
While the school has always had graphic identity—the visual way Williston is represented on everything from minibuses to business cards—there was little consensus around how that image was used. The seal, designed 25 years ago to imitate the wavy lines of a woodcut, was sometimes used together with the school name, but more often without. In digital form, the seal appeared blurry or too condensed.
As they stroll around the park, taking in the sights and sounds of the holiday season, visitors to Fenway Park on November 30 might also perk their ears at renditions of Williston Northampton favorites, “O Williston” and “Sammy.”
