Mercator College was the first college of the then International University Bremen (IUB) that ever had a logo of its own. The decision to have a logo grew out of a workshop that the college office team and we, the then college masters had with one of Mercator’s long-standing honorary members, Professor Werner Bergholz. Professor Bergholz, who had worked with the Siemens and Infineon companies before he became a professor at Jacobs University, offered the college team a full-day ‘total quality control’ meeting. Aside from many valuable insights into what can improve the work of a college team, the meeting came up with the mission statement for our college and with the idea to introduce a college logo for branding and identification enhancement purposes.

As usual, said was done: A logo contest was called open to all member of the university. The medium of submissions was not prescribed, so almost 30 different submissions on paper and as electronic files reached us. A committee was instituted, consisting of students, ourselves, and Professors Bergholz and Frohne, another Honorary Member, who was at that time a Professor of Visual Arts at our university and meanwhile has moved to the University of Cologne. This committee decided that the submission by Octavian Druta was best suited to serve as the college logo after a few minor modifications. Octavian Druta was a resident of Krupp College, a 2007 graduate of Electrical Engineering and Computer Science. Funnily enough, he reported to have been inspired by the logo of a Romanian hairdressing cosmetic company (of course, the company was asked for permission): That’s where the wavy part of the logo comes from. It is meant to stand for the waves of communication and symbolizes the vivid atmosphere of Mercator. The ‘circle-ish’ element emblematizes the globe with parallels and meridians, and stands for cosmopolitanism. So, from a Romanian hairdresser to lived global openness!

by Mandy & Klaus Boehnke

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Mercator Logo

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