Pictures of eggs and a little bird on the social media channels of Radboud University (RU) caused quite some confusion in the past few weeks. It seemed as if the communication department lost their wits, but it all turns out to have been about the introduction of a new Radboud icon. According to the RU, students will soon be seeing more of the little bird.
Original text: Joep Dorna and Vincent Veerbeek
Translation: Ilse Peeters
Last week, bird nests appeared at various places around campus with eggs in them that looked like they had been stolen from the Efteling ride Vogel Rok. The RU accompanied pictures of these nests with mysterious texts, such as ‘Someone is eager to get out’ and ‘A big plus being a bird: you never have to visit a dentist!’. Whoever was already confused by these messages, felt completely lost after the revelation via a video posted on Facebook and Instagram. A little bird bursts out of its egg, after which Robin, ‘the newest member of the Radboud family’, is welcomed. People in the comment section mainly wondered what on earth this was supposed to mean.
‘Looking at the comments, I already knew that it might have needed some more clarification’, says Heleen Seevinck, editor for the department of Marketing and Communication. ‘We have designed a little bird, Robin, as the icon of the RU. Many universities already have a logo and we wanted to create something for us to identify with as well.’ Some universities use an owl as their logo, but Seevinck argues that would be a too obvious choice. ‘Many robins fly around on campus, which led us to choose this icon in the end.’
Initially, Robin will be used primarily on social media, and there are no concrete plans for the bird apart from that yet. ‘It would be nice to have Robin be more visible around campus, since we really like the little bird’, says Seevinck. ‘We for instance thought about using the bird in combination with a textbook when Brightspace goes live.’ Seevinck adds that students are always welcome to share their ideas about Robin.