Beloved Gorilla logo gets even better with age

Although the Gus Gorilla mascot is much older, the familiar crimson and gold logo with the unmistakable eyes turns 20 this year. Sometimes called the “split-face,” the popular image was designed by Michael Hailey, who at the time worked in the PSU Public Relations Office.

To celebrate this special anniversary, PSU will host a birthday party for the logo on Saturday, Oct. 7, as part of the GorillaFest tailgate party prior to the football game with Washburn. The brief ceremony will be held at approximately 1:15 p.m. in Gorilla Village. Gus Gorilla will assist in cutting the cake, which will be served to the first 500 persons.

In an interview earlier this year, Hailey said coming up with a new gorilla logo was a difficult assignment until he stepped back from the project to think about it anew.

“I studied the gorilla for a while and tried to determine its essence,” Hailey said. “I decided it was intelligence. All of that was in the eyes.”

The art seemed to flow naturally from that realization.

“When I sat down (to draw), it was there,” Hailey recalled. He said the final image emerged from his first attempt. “I didn’t change a line.”

Two decades later, the image that Hailey drew seems to grow more popular every day. Alumni Relations Director Minday Cloninger said the image is a big hit with alumni, even those who attended the university long before Hailey’s drawing.

The logo, which adorns everything from hats, flags and sweatshirts to license plates and even permanent tattoos, can be found in some surprising places. Sightings have been reported from a bar in Dublin, Ireland, to the deserts of Iraq and many points in between.

Having the logo on the Alumni Legacy Scholarship license plates, Cloninger said, was a major factor in that program’s dramatic success. The Alumni Association recently reported the sale of the 1,000th plate, Cloninger said.

Hailey, who left PSU for employment at Missouri Southern State University not long after he created the new logo, said he is pleased by the enduring affection PSU alumni have for his drawing.

“I was hoping it would last,” Hailey said, “but things change. As an artist, it feels good to have the public respond so well to something you have created.”

---Pitt State--