Category Archives: graphic design

A new video scoreboard at the other end of Memorial Field

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The announcement of a new Daktronics video scoreboard for Memorial Field includes an illustration (via Big Green Alert Blog; see also Dartmouth Sports).

Although any scoreboard will have something to quibble with (please drop the trademark symbol from the big letter D!) this illustration has many things to praise. The designer has rationalized the fonts and eliminated much of the clutter of the old scoreboard. The designer also deserves credit for not using the ephemeral triangular-trapezoidal athletics logo and for getting the apostrophes right.

Here’s something notable: the scoreboard will be switching ends:

The new Daktronics scoreboard will be located at the south end of the stadium to avoid direct sunlight and maximize image clarity.

The new campus map is out; other topics

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  • That Occom Ridge house that was captured in a state of extreme disarray in various aerials has indeed been replaced by a new house by Haynes & Garthwaite. Bing has a more recent aerial view.
  • The graduate and professional schools’ heraldry is on display on the college’s new website. The graduation gowns of the schools also carry uniform shields now, with Flickr examples of Tuck, Thayer, and Graduate Studies. The Trustees get the Old Pine.
  • The Planner has a post presenting the new campus map. This is an almost-final version of the traditional paper map. It’s notable that the two freestanding lounge buildings in the Choates are given their own names, Brittle and Bissco, for the first time on a campus map. I lived in the Choates during the early ’90s and don’t recall those names being used, even informally.
  • The Friends of Hanover Crew have a new design for the site. It is hard to remember, but the prior design might have made more use of Wilson’s Landing Road.
  • Thanks to Melvin I. Smith for the citation to the Old Division Football paper in his Evolvements of Early American Foot Ball: Through the 1890/91 Season (2008).
  • The Rauner Blog has a nice post on the dedication of Rollins Chapel and Wilson Hall. It’s always interesting to see this fraternal twin to Rollins, designed by the same architect (John Lyman Faxon) in Newton, Mass. (See also the Bing view.)


DADA exhibit, other news

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  • DADA (Dartmouth Alumni in Design and Architecture) is having its third alumni architecture exhibit June 6 through 16 in the Nearburg Arts Forum in the Black Family Visual Arts Center (via Sue).
  • The Big Green Alert Blog reports that the Town has approved the zoning amendments that will allow a new video scoreboard at Memorial Field (a topic about which alumni are fairly passionate, judging from the comments on a post at this blog). The Zoning Board was to have considered a request for a Special Exception to replace the existing scoreboard at Scully-Fahey Field in its hearing on May 30 (ZBA Agenda).
  • The Rauner Library Blog has a post about old postcards depicting the campus.
  • The Dartmouth published a series of three articles on architecture last month. First, “Despite lack of major, architecture offerings abound” suggests again how interesting a history of the somewhat hidden world of design education at Dartmouth would be; second, “Recent campus buildings depart from New England tradition” focuses on post-1984 work; and third, “College’s early buildings share traditional aesthetic” covers prewar buildings (thanks to Amanda for the quotes).
  • Dartmouth Now article (and Flickr set) on the Life Sciences Greenhouse atop the Life Sciences Center.
  • The Planner has photos of the new offices of Dartmouth Computing in Baker, the new deans’ offices (Student Academic Support Services) in Carson, in a space formerly occupied by the Computer Store (Planner’s Blog post), and the new location of the Computer Store in McNutt. This confusing shuffle was mentioned on this blog during April. Any word on the fate of the old Kiewit space outside the Tower Room?
  • The Planner also has photos of 113 Wilder, the Physics Department’s office and lounge suite.

More on the Orgo Farm master plan; other notes

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The new campus map

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The new campus map is available to mobile devices from the Dartmouth Mobile website (Dartmouth Planning announcement). The new map is better-looking than the current map, a pdf released in August of 2010 (Flash version). The society names are spelled out in Roman type, eliminating the orthographic creativity that rendered “ΦΔΑ” as “FDA” on the current map.

Because it’s electronic, this new map has a fantastic scope. Zooming out will display everything from the hospital to the Organic Farm, and the map’s coverage includes nodes for the airport and the Skiway. The Morton Farm equestrian center is included within the known world as well.

The scoreboard of the future

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The Dartmouth writes on proposed amendments to the Town’s zoning ordinances, including amendments that deal with athletic scoreboards. The minutes of the Planning Board from February 5 (pdf) state that Dartmouth has eight outdoor scoreboards and provide this background:

Bob Ceplikas, Deputy Director of Dartmouth Athletics, said there have been a lot of changes over the years with the set-up of Division 1 sports venues, including technology. It is more and more standard for Division 1 football stadiums to include video displays in their scoreboards. Dartmouth is now the only Ivy League school that does not provide video display. The Ordinance’s current language does not allow for scoreboards to exist as they currently do; it does not even allow for the score to be displayed. The Ordinance should be brought up to date to reflect the real purpose of an athletic scoreboard.

No comment on the possibility of a video display (one of the thrills of seeing a college football game in person is the presence of it: there is no replay, so you have to pay attention), but the idea that the scoreboard at Memorial Field could be redesigned is intriguing.

A generous donation of the Class of 1966, the scoreboard is informative, traditional, and appealing — but it could be made even better. The number of typefaces could be reduced from five or so to three. The various vertical surfaces could be brought into the same plane. The “TIME OUTS LEFT” text could be aligned in a more balanced way. A little more space could be given inside some of the white borders, and the general crowding and busyness could be reduced.

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[Update 06.09.2013: The text of the ordinance, as found in the March 12 Planning Board minutes (pdf), prohibits advertising:

Athletic scoreboards may display:
A. Information pertinent to the event and facility
B. Recognition of donors and sponsors by name only
C. Other general athletic or institutional information
D. Any other information customarily displayed on contemporary scoreboards, but not to include commercial advertising.

That should remove some concerns.]

Orozco Murals a National Historic Landmark

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A week ago, the Orozco Frescoes in Baker’s Reserve Corridor were designated as a National Historic Landmark (National Park Service, The Dartmouth, Dartmouth Now, NHPR). The nomination was noted here last November. The Planner’s Blog has some information on the effort.

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Update 05.03.2013: An article from The Dartmouth.

Rebranding the Inn

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Korn Design of Boston and New York did the new branding for the Hanover Inn. Korn has also worked for the Charles Hotel and for Northeastern University, for whom it developed a proprietary typeface, Northeastern Baskerville, with Font Bureau (Wikipedia).

At the Inn, the firm seems to have done its homework: the White Mountains photos are by Eli Burakian and

The typography for the logo is adapted from an original Dartmouth woodblock cut typeface designed in 1969 by Will Carter and Paul Hayden Duensing.

Korn has a photo of the typography in action on the Inn’s porte-cochere.

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[Update 06.03.2013: Broken link to Font Bureau replaced with Wikipedia link.]

Another old elm felled; other news items

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  • The elm tree in front of Collis has been cut down (the Planner’s Blog). The tree stood north of the northwest corner of Main and Wheelock, as shown in the Google Street View image above.
  • Adrain Dater reminisces about the early days of Thompson Arena at DartmouthSports.com.
  • A Valley News article on two guys from Pike, N.H. who were going to the World Series of Beer Pong in Las Vegas explains the game but strangely does not mention Dartmouth, even to distinguish “beer pong” from “pong.”
  • The Alumni Relations Office presents a photoset showing A History of Dartmouth in 20 Objects.
  • The Valley News reports that the Lebanon Planning Board has delayed its approval of a 162,970 square foot research building at the hospital complex. The problem is traffic. (It is not clear whether this is the building formerly or presently called the Williamson Translational Research Building.) (Update: It is the Williamson according to the Union Leader.)
  • The new Dartmouth website makes more and better use of the coat of arms than did the old site. A white outline of the shield is combined with text atop photographs on the President-Elect’s site (in this image) and at least one detail of a portion of the shield is blown up and used as a background in other places (in this image, reminding one of the current fifty-pence coin).
  • Inside Higher Ed has an article on how the for-profit Grand Canyon University is preparing to field a Division I basketball team. Fascinating.
  • President-Elect Hanlon, in his roles in planning and finance at Michigan, very likely worked with Venturi, Scott Brown & Associates. The firm was brought to Michigan by then-president Lee Bollinger, Dartmouth’s former provost, and designed a campus plan (2002) and life sciences complex (2003, 2005).
  • City Prints produces an arresting Dartmouth map.
  • “Dartmouth is, after all, not so much a college as a collection of stories about a college.” David M. Shribman and Jack DeGange, Dartmouth College Football: Green Fields of Autumn, 8.

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[Update 01.27.2013: Williamson identity information added.]

A new online map of the campus is in production

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The Office of Planning and Design and the Office of Public Affairs are putting together a new post-Flash online campus map (the Planner’s Blog).

The sample map provided looks promising: the society names have been corrected (“AZD” is “Alpha Xi Delta”) and the obscuring blue triangles indicating accessible entrances have been removed. Because the map will be on line, the accessibility information can remain hidden until a particular area is moused over (or tapped on a mobile device? Lots of possibilities here).

A Passion for Snow and other notes

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  • Here in Hanover ran a profile of architect Randall Mudge in its Spring 2011 issue (pdf).
  • David’s House at CHaD is adding a wing (Valley News).
  • This unusual stucco house at 28 East Wheelock has a whiff of Larson about it; it is owned by the college (see Dartmouth Real Estate):


  • A trailer for the upcoming Dartmouth ski documentary A Passion for Snow is available.
  • A map art company is selling a print of a stylized map of the campus.
  • Something big has happened to 8 Occom Ridge:

    The later aerial views from Google and Bing (below) appear to show a replacement:

  • A Dartmouth shirt sold on eBay says “Go Green and White.” Hmmm.
  • The Development Office has its own in-house PR firm, the Office of Development Communications.
  • An article on archeology in Columbia, Connecticut explains that the first building of Moor’s Indian Charity School still stands, on a later foundation.
  • Both the renovated Hanover High and the new Richmond Middle School have biomass plants. It is hard to imagine that any future Dartmouth heating plant would not rely at least in part on burning wood chips.
  • The Dartmouth Planner reports that the Town of Hanover is beginning to rewrite its zoning ordinances.
  • Last spring, van Zelm Heywood & Shadford helped renovate Burke Chemistry Laboratory (The Dartmouth).
  • A recent photo of the roof of the expanded Hayward Room at the Inn, taken with the Class of 1966 Webcam:

    roof of Hayward Room at expanded Hanover Inn

The graphical Green; arts events

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As seen at Dartmouth Now, the Year of the Arts logo initially reads as a cluster of cinema searchlight beams:

But of course it is a map of the paths on the Green, with north to the left. A larger version of the logo at the festival’s website takes on the appearance of a print, or perhaps a painting.

Coverage of the opening of the Visual Arts Center may be found in The Dartmouth and Dartmouth Now. Hood Director Taylor speaks about the Kelly sculpture and its aircraft-grade aluminum in video. The Valley News has a story on the Hop at 50, and the Year of the Arts site has a timeline of the arts on campus beginning with 1962.

Heraldry: The Tuck School and the Temple at Hephaestos

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I. The Geisel School. The big topic in Dartmouth heraldry is the Geisel School of Medicine’s new shield, mentioned here. It contains the familiar elements of the river, pine, founding date, and book, and it omits the depiction of the old Medical Building, which was demolished about 55 years ago. It deserves an analysis of its own.

II. The Graduate Studies Program. The Grad Studies shield seems to be receiving a big push, with a banner for Dartmouth Night (Grad Studies’ Flickr photostream) and the distribution of decals to students (Flickr).

The shield carries on what seem to be the unifying elements in Dartmouth’s armorial family: (1) the use of a founding date and (2) the placement of wavy lines in the base of the shield to represent the Connecticut River.

Here is how it looks in the group (published in March, shortly before the medical shield was replaced):

Shields image from Vox the Vote
Shields representing Dartmouth and Associated Schools, from Vox the Vote.

The vertical year on the Grad Studies shield does not seem entirely successful in this rendition.

III. The Tuck School.

Graphically, the chunkiness of the Tuck shield, at the far right above, is appealing. It uses an extreme closeup view to cut off the building’s eaves, and its heavy line causes the shield border itself to read as part of the temple front. The Eighteenth-century letterforms are also nice and relate to Dartmouth’s seal, although they are not of the same 1990s (?) language as the rest of the Tuck shield.

The one thing that has always been disturbing about the Tuck shield is that it depicts a nonexistent building. It is not a stylized version of Tuck Hall’s portico; instead it represents a hexastyle Doric temple, like the temple at Hephaestos.


Temple at Hephaestos, from Banister Fletcher, A History of Architecture on the Comparative Method (1905) via Google Books.

Compare the row of six squat columns without capitals in Hephaestos to the Ionic portico of four relatively attenuated columns in Tuck Hall:

Tuck Hall by Meacham

Tuck Hall temple front.


Shield with border removed and eaves extended, treating border as representing outer columns.


Alternatively, shield with border removed entirely to leave a quadristyle portico.

Perhaps this should not be irksome, since Dartmouth’s own shield depicts a nonexistent building as well. One way to resolve the problem would be for the Tuck School to build a hexastyle temple front somewhere on its campus.

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[Update 08.16.2012: Green temple-only illustrations added.]

Renaming the Medical School

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Dartmouth has changed the name of its medical school1Inspired by a recent article in Businessweek on the cost of naming rights for business schools, this morning I jotted down the idea for a post on Dartmouth’s offer of naming rights for its medical school, an offer previously noted here in 2005. It was not ten minutes later that I received the announcement, presumably held for release until after April Fool’s Day, that Dartmouth had named its medical school after Dr. Seuss. from the Dartmouth Medical School to the Audrey and Theodor Geisel School of Medicine at Dartmouth. Dr. Seuss, as Dartmouth’s most famous “doctor” [of philosophy], would seem to be as good a namesake as any.

Now the medical school fits the pattern established by Dartmouth’s two later professional schools. The current names of the three institutions seem to be:

  • The Tuck School (the Tuck School of Business at Dartmouth College)
  • Thayer School (the Thayer School of Engineering)
  • The Geisel School (the Geisel School of Medicine at Dartmouth).

The Medical School has a long tradition of changing its name, and it sometimes goes by several names at once. An 1897 note titled “Name of the School” reads:

The name of the Medical Department seems to have changed several times. In 1806 the broadside list of students is headed: “Catalogue of the Medical Students and Students of College who attended the Medical Lectures at Dartmouth University” (as far back as Sept. 20, 1782, the Trustees passed a resolution styling the College a University); that of 1811, “Catalogue of the Dartmouth Medical Theatre;” that of 1814, “Catalogue of the Medical Institution at Dartmouth University;” that of 1817, “Catalogue of the Dartmouth Medical Institution.” At some time between this date and 1824 the name “New Hampshire Medical Institution” began to be used and was retained until 1880 though the official title has always been the “Medical Department of Dartmouth College.”2Phineas S. Conner, Historical Address, in “Dartmouth Medical College Centennial Exercises” (1897), 27.

The name “the Medical Department,” which is not explained by the note, was in use at least by 1812.3Dartmouth Trustees meeting minutes (1812), quoted in Conner, 57. Other examples include “the Medical College” (1871,4Medical faculty meeting minutes (1871), quoted in Conner, 61. 1880,5Oliver P. Hubbard, The Early History of the New Hampshire Medical Institution (Washington, D.C.: Oliver P. Hubbard, 1880), 37. 18836Medical faculty meeting minutes (1883), quoted in Conner, 61.), “the Dartmouth Medical College” (1868,7Medical faculty meeting minutes (1868), quoted in Conner, 56. 1895,8Dartmouth medical faculty meeting minutes (1895), quoted in Conner, 46. 18979Conner, 22.), “the Medical School of New Hampshire” (189310Petition of New Hampshire Medical Society (1893), quoted in Conner, 33.), “the Medical Institution at Hanover” (189311Petition (1893), quoted in Conner, 33.), “the Medical School” (180912New Hampshire Legislature (1809), quoted in Conner, 29. Note that the school’s 1811 building, depicted on the old shield above, was itself initially called “the Medical School.”), and of course “the Dartmouth Medical School” (1880,13”From Abroad,” Medical Times and Gazette (11 December 1880), 660. 1897,14Conner, 17, 23.).

This would seem to be a good time to change the 1950s (?) shield again,15Jonathan Good has pointed out that the shield’s original Indian-head cane, shown above, was replaced by a conventional staff of Aesculapius during or before 2010. and it looks as if the school has already thought of that.

DMS and GSM shields

A pre-2010 version of the DMS shield, and the 2012 GSM shield

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[Update 04.05.2012: Caduceus corrected to Aesculapius.]

[Update 04.19.2012: Suppositional name “The Geisel School of Medicine” shortened to “The Geisel School.”]

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References
↑1 Inspired by a recent article in Businessweek on the cost of naming rights for business schools, this morning I jotted down the idea for a post on Dartmouth’s offer of naming rights for its medical school, an offer previously noted here in 2005. It was not ten minutes later that I received the announcement, presumably held for release until after April Fool’s Day, that Dartmouth had named its medical school after Dr. Seuss.
↑2 Phineas S. Conner, Historical Address, in “Dartmouth Medical College Centennial Exercises” (1897), 27.
↑3 Dartmouth Trustees meeting minutes (1812), quoted in Conner, 57.
↑4 Medical faculty meeting minutes (1871), quoted in Conner, 61.
↑5 Oliver P. Hubbard, The Early History of the New Hampshire Medical Institution (Washington, D.C.: Oliver P. Hubbard, 1880), 37.
↑6 Medical faculty meeting minutes (1883), quoted in Conner, 61.
↑7 Medical faculty meeting minutes (1868), quoted in Conner, 56.
↑8 Dartmouth medical faculty meeting minutes (1895), quoted in Conner, 46.
↑9 Conner, 22.
↑10 Petition of New Hampshire Medical Society (1893), quoted in Conner, 33.
↑11 Petition (1893), quoted in Conner, 33.
↑12 New Hampshire Legislature (1809), quoted in Conner, 29. Note that the school’s 1811 building, depicted on the old shield above, was itself initially called “the Medical School.”
↑13 ”From Abroad,” Medical Times and Gazette (11 December 1880), 660.
↑14 Conner, 17, 23.
↑15 Jonathan Good has pointed out that the shield’s original Indian-head cane, shown above, was replaced by a conventional staff of Aesculapius during or before 2010.

Brand identity topics

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I. The Dartmouth Company

Curiously, there is a Boston-based real estate company called The Dartmouth Company. It makes good use of serifs and a dark green color on its website and seems to operate in New Hampshire. See also the more obvious reference to the college at the Dartmouth Education Foundation.

II. The Arms of Dartmouth’s Schools

The Dartmouth College website seems to be doing something new when it describes the institution as a collection of five apparently equal schools:

shields from webpage

Excerpt from college website.

The harmonization and use of the schools’ shields is commendable.

But this arrangement seems to contradict the rule that Dartmouth is the college. The “Associated Schools” — Tuck, Thayer, Medical, and lately the graduate programs — are associated with the college but are not coequals beneath a central university administration. Because “Dartmouth” is the undergraduate college, there is no need to put the letters “CA&S” before one’s class year, for example.

Tom Owen writes in The Dartmouth today:

In the discussion following Kim’s address, Provost Carol Folt said there is a “complicated set of reasons” for the gap between Dartmouth’s national and international rankings. Two of the major contributing factors are Dartmouth’s lack of a “university” title and Dartmouth’s focus on undergraduates, both of which have hurt Dartmouth’s international reputation.

[…]

Although large-scale changes may be necessary in the next decade, alumni must see new developments as part of an institutional history of adaptation rather than as a threat to tradition, Kim said.

The school’s Quartomillennium celebration in 2019 would be a good time to launch something new.

[01.25.2012 update: Education Foundation link added.]

The DADA Show Catalog

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The catalog from the 2011 DADA Exhibition is now available (pdf) and provides some fascinating information about alumni in design.

For example, Domus, the Hanover firm that worked on the new Sigma Phi Epsilon house, includes Marty Davis ’69, Bruce R. Williamson ’74, and Bill Keegan ’75.

Canaan architectural blacksmith Dimitri Gerakaris ’69 (art-metal.com) created the copper pediment atop the Rockefeller Center porte-cochere, the Rugby Clubhouse interior bas-relief, and the railing outside Baker’s 1902 Room.

The poster was designed by Emily Yen ’10 of Hanover and Anchorage.


poster/

Thanks to author Sue Reed and to DADA for permission to post the catalog.

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[Update 11.17.2012: Broken link to catalog fixed.]
[Update 11.04.2012: Domus reference corrected: the firm worked on the Sigma Phi Epsilon house, but I believe a Vermont architect designed it.]