Choosing a logo is a process fraught with difficulty - just ask the organisers of the 2012 London Olympics, whose efforts were much derided. 

So it’s no surprise that the NUT and ATL unions have worked up a few different alternatives for the National Education Union.

Tes has obtained four draft logos for the new “super union”, which will be formed by the merger of the two unions in September. 

The first two examples arguably hark back to the 1980s in tone: ‘A’ has something of the Spirograph about it, whereas ‘B’ bears a passing resemblance to the old WHSmith logo.

Hugh Pearman, a design critic for The Sunday Times for 30 years, describes all four as “Doodle Logos”. “One imagines graphic designers sitting in long, coffee-fuelled meetings discussing what education and teaching ARE,” he tells Tes.

”None of them is stand-out wonderful and one is absolutely terrible but out of this four there is a winner.”

To find out which logo he rates, read Mr Pearman’s full critique below.

Results ‘will reflect aspirations’

A spokeswoman for the two unions said: “Launching the NEU gives ATL and the NUT a chance to create a new brand which reflects what members believe their new union will achieve for them, their colleagues and their students.

“As the NEU is neither NUT nor ATL, we’re working with a design agency, Spencer du Bois, to listen to members about how a modern union can champion education and stand up for teachers, education professionals and their communities.

“We’ve held workshops up and down the country, with ATL and NUT members coming together to share ideas, and with trainees, non-union members and parents talking about what they think a new union means for education.

“The logo currently with members for feedback is the culmination of these workshops. We look forward to getting the results to see how the new union’s brand will reflect members’ aspirations.”

Design critic Hugh Pearman writes:

A good logo (think of the 1965 British Rail double arrows, still widely used today to represent our railways and much copied around the world) seems somehow natural, in the sense that it gains widespread acceptance, doesn’t jar or cause people to roll their eyes or point and laugh.

Remember the over-complex London 2012 Olympics logo? That acted like a Rorschach Inkblot Test for people, who could and did read anything, no matter how rude, into its interlocking shapes. Not that it mattered in the end because everyone got behind London 2012, felt good about it, and the logo brouhaha was forgotten. 

These, however, for the prospective National Education Union, fall into another category: Doodle Logos. One imagines graphic designers sitting in long, coffee-fuelled meetings discussing what education and teaching are, and how to somehow represent that in a few lines that can work at all scales, on all devices. They get doodling. It’s a toughie: no railway track with speeding trains to provide inspiration.

1. Books, perhaps? That probably led to the Hitchcockian vortex-of-doom example, ‘A’. Note that one of the squares is picked out in a different colour, same colour as the word “education”. So: what do the other squares represent?

2. General dissemination of knowledge, sending informed students out into the world? That will be the fairy-dust one, ‘D’. It’s a relatively simple, happy thing. The dots could be children in a playground or gathered in a circle - that kind of thing. 

3. Building blocks of knowledge? There they are, ‘B’, the blocks made out of the letters N,E,U with (see also Vortex of Doom highlighting) one of the Es picked out in a different colour to hammer home the point. Education, Education...but it somehow looks like an old-fashioned building society brand.

4. One designer gave up this pursuit, perhaps in despair. ‘C’ - sorry? Do you not know what an E looks like? Is it a W or an M on its side perhaps? No, it is not. But if you make, I don’t know, some kind of coloured bandage or binding thing, a strip of fabric or, or - no. I have no idea what that is meant to be. A total fail.

So none of them is stand-out wonderful and one is absolutely terrible but out of this four there is a winner. The fairy dust one says clearly what it is - one of the two to avoid initials.

The words are not capitalised, so as to keep the lettering rounder and friendlier. Unlike the Vortex of Doom, it gives an impression of being outwards-facing, optimistic. Blues and greens are soothing, rather than strident, colours - was that part of the brief, since they all use them?

One caveat - all those differently sized and coloured dots make the thing potentially tricky to reproduce in all the applications that will be needed. Can it work very small, for instance?  

And finally, I’ve just realised why I like it. Half-close your eyes as you look at it and you see the ghost of one of the great logos of all time - the bar-and-circle London Transport roundel, dating back to Edwardian times. Whether consciously or not, it’s no bad model to emulate.

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