{"id":30888,"date":"2024-03-27T14:16:37","date_gmt":"2024-03-27T18:16:37","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.furman.edu\/news\/?p=30888"},"modified":"2024-06-11T09:25:06","modified_gmt":"2024-06-11T13:25:06","slug":"from-the-vault-furmans-diamond-f-logo-turns-50","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.furman.edu\/news\/from-the-vault-furmans-diamond-f-logo-turns-50\/","title":{"rendered":"From the Vault: Furman\u2019s Diamond F Logo Turns 50"},"content":{"rendered":"

One spring day in 1973, Dennis Zeiger \u201974, a quarter-miler on the Furman track team and an art major, walked through Alley Gym and past the football coaches\u2019 offices on his way to the track locker room. Assistant coach Steve Robertson saw Zeiger and called him into his office. New head football coach Art Baker was turning around a team that went 2-9 the fall before.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cThe team needs a new image,\u201d Robertson told Zeiger. That meant a new logo. The design at the time, an \u201cF\u201d on a shield, had the bitter taste of too many lopsided losses lingering on its metaphorical tongue.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cI want something simple, like the Dallas Cowboys\u2019 star. Can ya help us out?\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2019ll give it my best shot,\u201d said Zeiger. You might call him Diamond Dennis for the contribution he was about to make to his university.<\/span><\/p>\n

Back in his dorm room, Zeiger pulled out a sketch pad and noodled Robertson\u2019s sparse direction. He grabbed a nearby saucer and traced an arc with its curve. Then he drew an intersecting arc. \u201cI kinda like the way that\u2019s looking,\u201d he said to himself.<\/span><\/p>\n

Soon he had drawn a diamond, and the concept began to take shape.<\/span><\/p>\n

Between classes and track practices, Zeiger stylized several \u201cF\u2019s\u201d inside the diamond and settled on one.<\/span><\/p>\n

Two weeks after he first talked with Robertson, Zeiger was back in the coach\u2019s office.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cYeah, I like that,\u201d Robertson said. \u201cHow much do we owe ya?\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

Zeiger scratched his head. The art had only taken a few hours.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cHow about $25?\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

More than 50 years later, Zeiger sometimes laments how little he charged for the design.<\/span><\/p>\n

After graduation, Zeiger sold sneakers and strung tennis rackets at Sam Wyche Sports World until a job at an advertising agency came along. Over the next couple of decades, he worked for a couple of agencies, had a couple of kids and went to a lot of Paladin football and basketball games. In 2005, he went to work overseeing marketing for a small Spartanburg company called Polydeck and loved it. He retired in 2019.<\/span><\/p>\n

In 2003, the university registered the Diamond F as a trademark, giving it \u201cpermanent space as an official logo along with its earned space as the most recognized icon for the Furman brand,\u201d says Elizabeth Lichtenberg, senior director of brand strategy and visual communications in Furman\u2019s University Communications Office. \u201cIt has prominence on marketing materials, is on more than 1,500 purchasable items and has even more presence on graphics all over campus.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

For many years, Zeiger didn\u2019t think much about his role in Furman\u2019s logo.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cI don\u2019t need to be out front on things,\u201d Diamond Dennis says. \u201cBut as I\u2019ve gotten older and it\u2019s become more prevalent around the school, I do have a lot of pride that I was able to do that. Of the things I\u2019ve done in my life, that\u2019s one of the things I\u2019m most proud of. Fifty years later, it\u2019s still going strong.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The most recognized icon of the Furman brand took shape in a student\u2019s sketch pad.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":389,"featured_media":30889,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[2661,1963,2660],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-30888","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-around-the-lake-spring-2024","category-furman-magazine","category-spring-2024"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.furman.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/30888","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.furman.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.furman.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.furman.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/389"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.furman.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=30888"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.furman.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/30888\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":32568,"href":"https:\/\/www.furman.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/30888\/revisions\/32568"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.furman.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/30889"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.furman.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=30888"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.furman.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=30888"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.furman.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=30888"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}