School colors

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The Blue and White (Mark Holden C '09)

Columbia's official School Colors are "Columbia Blue" and white. Both colors were originally drawn from the two literary societies that were at the heart of student life in the 19th century: Philolexian Blue, and Peithologian White.

[edit] History

The history of Blue and White dates back to 1852, when the Philolexian and Peithologian Societies cut back on their use of two colors each (Blue and Silver for Philo, White and Gold for Peitho) to one apiece. While the colors entered into general usage by students during the 19th century, they first came into prominent use by the school in 1873 "at the boat race in Springfield" according to Dean John Howard Van Amringe.

The Philolexian Society maintains to this day, in mock indignation, the position that the school colors are in fact stolen. In 1986, one member of the society wrote a letter to the President of the University demanding $1 million in restitution.^[1]

[edit] Current Definition

Today the definition of Columbia Blue has been settled, though this wasn't always the case. The University published a visual identity guide in May 2009 identifying Pantone 290 as the official "Columbia Blue."^[2] The guide also identifies Pantones 280, 284, 286, and 291 as interchangeable palette choices for use with different backgrounds. The selection of Pantone 290 as the official color cemented Columbia College's prior adoption of 290 as "Columbia Blue" in its own Visual Identity Guide.^[3]

[edit] Past Attempts to Define

"Columbia Blue" had been a hard color to pin down historically. A column in the February 1949 Columbia Alumni News lamented the lack of a designated color, and set about to investigate. The magazine noted that it used a shade of turquoise for its cover, that the University had adopted a shade called azure for the University Shield, and that on top of that "there are the variegated blues of programs, announcements, and invitations. There is no single Columbia blue."

In the same column the curator of Columbiana described the color as "the blue of the sky close to the horizon on a clear day," but confessed that "Oh, I just tear off the a piece of the cover of the University catalogue" when requesting the color from printers, and Columbia University Press's printing office simply stated that "why, we just ask for Columbia blue."^[4]

The athletics department tried to settle the issue in 1999 when it redesigned the lion logo, declaring that Columbia Blue was Pantone 292.^[5] It's not clear whether in adopting Pantone 290 as Columbia Blue 10 years later the administration had been ignorant of the Athletics' departments earlier effort, or wasn't satisfied with the earlier selection.^[6]

It's worth noting that the historical range of Columbia Blue in its various uses has run from Cyan to Azure, to more subdued shades of Cornflower blue.

[edit] List of colors and uses

[edit] "Official" Versions of Columbia Blue^[7]

[edit] Other Versions of Columbia Blue

[edit] References

1. ↑ Letter to President Sovern.
2. ↑ blue290 A Practical Guide to Columbia’s Standards of Visual Identity (May 2009)
3. ↑ Columbia College Visual Identity Guide. Note that the College guide offers yet another contrasting blue option (Pantone 295), in addition to a more colorful palette generally.
4. ↑ Columbia Alumni News Vol. XL No. 5, February 1949
5. ↑ The Lion Enters Slick New Era, Columbia Spectator, Nov. 11, 1999
6. ↑ Another wrinkle is that the Columbia University Club Sports Visual Identity Style Guide mandates that club sports teams use Pantone 291 as 'Columbia Light Blue.' Whether this was meant to distinguigh club teams from varsity teams who were still using Pantone 292, as many of the guidelines in the guide are meant to do, or was part of redefinition of the color is also unclear.
7. ↑ Note that due to the way colors are "defined", color matching and rendering is extremely difficult without certain information and that these renderings are basically guesswork.