The Billiken has been given a makeover, its first since the ’90s. We asked D.B. Dowd, a professor in Washington University’s Sam Fox School of Design & Visual Arts, to share his thoughts on the new look.
“The Billiken has received various visual treatments. In the 1980s, he had a hand-drawn Seussian quality, later codified in the 1995 version…badly. The newest Billiken, redesigned by the brand shop Olson, has been standardized into an emblem. His formerly lumpy cheeks and pronounced chin, which made him look like a clove of garlic endowed with ears, have been pumped up by geometry, like mid-2000s Cadillacs. Once elfin, the Billiken has gone gremlin-esque.
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“The ‘drawing’ of the character seems to have been produced by a laser cutter. This is the legacy of Adobe Illustrator, the 21st-century tool of choice. The new guy is impressive, but the image lacks all touch—it looks decreed, not drawn. The best 20th-century ad characters were made with ink and brush, and you could tell.”
Update: In response to the onslaught of criticism about the Billiken’s new design, St. Louis University president Fred Pestello announced that the redesigned mascot will, again, be redesigned.
