I believe that Baylor needs to ditch the redesign of Marigold and revert back to the original mascot head.
I lived with a Baylor mascot last year, and I spent a lot of time up close with the mascot heads for both Bruiser and Marigold before and after the Baylor United rebranding. While they both changed in their own ways, I have issues with the changes made to Marigold.
When you look at the new Marigold, it’s pretty apparent that something is off with her new face.
The first thing I notice is her eyes. The eyes have gone from a friendly and somewhat inviting look to something that more closely looks like worry or surprise.
I believe this has to do with the change in her brow shape. Previously, she had a more uniform brow that was flat across both eyes, but the redesign has two more individually sculpted brows. When looking at her straight on, these new brows shape her eyes in a way that make her look worried and even a little uncomfortable.
I also think her new chin fur makes her look too masculine because of the way it wraps around her face. When looking at her face straight on, it looks more like a 5 o’clock shadow thananything else. I also don’t think I’ve ever seen a real bear with face markings that resemble the ones on both Marigold and Bruiser, however, I will say that it may be there to make the two of them look more like teddy bears.
The big thing for me, though is her mouth. Reshaping her mouth has been the biggest mistake that I think they made during the redesign process.
When compared to the old Marigold head, her mouth is now far more open and is showing more teeth. The problem with this is that showing the extra teeth makes her look more aggressive. I personally wouldn’t have a problem with this, but the mascots are mostly for the kids. Being around my old roommate I have seen that kids are more scared of the new Marigold than the old one, and I believe it’s because they mostly stare into her mouth.
I definitely don’t think Baylor needs to go back to the drawing board on Marigold because the old one was perfectly fine, so I think if they just grabbed the old head out of the closet it’d be all the better.
Chris Curby
Senior
Supply Chain Management
