The Origins of Our Logo

August 19, 2003

I am often asked about the origins of our school logo. This visual symbol for Princeton Academy, much like the school itself, began with some ideas shared and initiated around a kitchen table, that were developed and brought to fruition through the work and input of others in our school community.

It all began shortly after I arrived at 101 Drake’s Corner Road, when I noticed some red tailed hawks soaring gracefully above our campus. When I shared the idea of having the hawk as our mascot, the initial reaction of my colleagues was sometimes receptive but mostly “aren’t they symbols of war or aggression?” – effectively putting a damper on the idea of a hawk as our mascot.

Fortunately, the red tailed hawks continued to soar above our campus, and one of our teachers discovered some literature that described red tailed hawks as soaring “for the sheer joy of it.” For those of us disposed to the hawk as a mascot, this description was inspiring. In the autumn of our first year we created a bookmark for our small school community with the quote, “Soar for the sheer joy of it” written underneath the image of a soaring hawk drawn by my son Jan.

This story might have ended with that bookmark, except that shortly into our first year, the Network of Sacred Heart Schools very politely informed me that the school was using the network logo on its letterhead, and kindly asked that we stop. We now needed to develop a new logo.

One evening, I discovered a website that listed what certain objects and animals symbolized for some Native American tribes. The hawk was listed as a symbol of Truth. When I shared this with my colleagues, we all agreed that it should be our mascot. At the same time, while working with the Everyday Math website hosted by the University of Chicago, I noticed that the University’s crest was that of a shield with an eagle in it, and a bar across the top of the shield with a book in the bar. It inspired me to develop a similar crest with symbols important to Princeton Academy.

The first drawing of the crest took place around my kitchen table. One evening I asked my wife, Kim (a far better artist than I), to make a sketch of a shield filled with a hawk, and in a bar above the hawk draw the other symbols important to the mission of Princeton Academy. The result was the image on the right: a hawk for truth, a heart for compassion and courage, a cross for faith and spirituality, and an open book for knowledge and intellectual growth. (Note that the cross is in the same shape as the cross on the Manor House. Headmaster’s challenge: decipher the words in Latin at the bottom and translate into English.)

I shared the initial sketch and ideas with Deb Gwazda, our art teacher, and asked her to play with it. Our immediate reaction was that the hawk looked too aggressive and would be better replaced by a soaring hawk, like the one on the bookmark. Deb’s work resulted in the crest much as it is today. At the top of the crest, Deb incorporated the gable of the Manor House. The bar was moved into a diagonal position and filled with the hawk in flight. The book was put underneath the hawk. We struggled with how and what type of heart to incorporate in the crest. Deb continued to work with various models of the “Sacred Heart,” while I took the crest to Isabella Palowitch, the designer of our admissions materials, and asked if she could put it into a digital format that we could use for a variety of purposes. I shared with her the development of the crest, the important symbolism of the heart, and how we were still trying to make it part of the crest. When Isabella returned with her work, she surprised us with a sample of how she had incorporated the heart very subtly into the body of the shield. If you look closely at the crest, you will see that the upper corners of the diagonal bar that fills in the interior are slightly rounded, creating a heart in the interior of the shield.

This symbol of faith, truth, intellectual growth, and courage all linked by compassion was adopted as our crest and has since been incorporated into a logo for Princeton Academy. Like so much about Princeton Academy it is a work that was started by a vision, and developed through the efforts and input of many in the community.