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| Bri Meyer AHS Senior |
Arrowhead Changes Its Logo
Arrowhead High
School has been a symbol of sports and education for the Hartland community for
over 60 years. Now, the AHS team has changed their logo to unify the school and
keep tradition alive. At the start of the 2011-12 year, AHS switched its school-wide
logo to the red, white, and blue “block A” to connect the school and sports
programs so well known at AHS.
“In the past there
were four or five different As, from block to italic,” says AHS activities
director Kevin Flegner. “We wanted to have one logo or image that gives
Arrowhead an image or identity.”
The logo change has been underway for the past two
years. According to Flegner, the school wanted to change the logo both to take
advantage of licensing opportunities and to create a single logo for the entire
high school.
The block A logo change officially went into
effect in 2012 and now represents every aspect of AHS, including sports teams,
education, and the booster club.
“Before last year,
every [sport] did their own thing,” says AHS varsity softball coach Emily
Martin. “For example, the softball program used a cursive A and the hockey
program used an A that incorporated the actual Indian arrowhead.”
In reality, the
Arrowhead logo did not change—it was just unified under one common design. The
logo with the arrowhead, also known as the “lantern logo,” will still be
incorporated into the school’s educational programs (like achievement
certificates for GPA), but the block A will be present on all certificates, letterheads,
emails, and sports jerseys from now on. As Flegner says, “each team was
required to incorporate the block A somehow into their individual logos, but we
allowed them to keep their old designs.”
Corresponding with
the logo change was the new “One Team” slogan for the AHS Athletic Department.
Although not officially associated, the new logo and the new slogan were
premiered together during the 2012 state football game, when the two covered
Hartland on placards.
“The One Team idea
is that we have a lot of games, performances, and clubs at Arrowhead, but we
are One Team,” says varsity football head coach Greg Malling of the new look. “The
block A is a perfect representation of Arrowhead. It's strong, simple, clean. I
can't imagine a better look.”
Even though the logo
changed two years ago, the block A design is not a new one—in fact, the design
is almost 10 years old. When the turf went into Pfeifer Memorial Field in 2004,
the block A went in the center. Other than that, the logo has been in the AHS
arsenal, but rarely used outside the football program, partly because of a
trademark issue with the then-logo of University of Arizona.
“We had a problem
with University of Arizona because, at that time, they were using a very
similar A design for their school,” says Flegner. “Luckily, since then they
have changed it, and now we can use it.”
For the first time in years, AHS has a uniform logo for
all sports teams as well as education. The school hopes in a few years,
according to Flegner, the block A will be a common representation of Arrowhead.
“It really is like a
college logo,” he says. “It stands out.”
Coach Martin agrees:
“Give it a few years, and if you're wearing the block A, people will know it's
Arrowhead.”
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