I had no intention of writing this today, but I started designing a simple logo in Illustrator and it occurred to me that the proper and semi-proper abbreviations for Business English are unattractive:
- BUS-ENG (this is one of the most proper, but it has the word “bus” which has a possibly negative connotation)
- BUS-EN (again, the “bus”)
- BSN-ENG, BS-EN (BSN is not a standard abbreviation for “business.”)
- BS-ENG, BS-EN (Bullshit English?)
- BE (proper, but too generic and easily confused with existing abbreviations, e.g., Bachelor of Engineering, British English)
I also thought of the name “BUSI” that could be pronounced “BUSY.” Then I could use the tagline, “GET BUSI!” But then I thought about how ugly the word looks: BUSI
So I started thinking about something else – there is only one proper abbreviation for “business” in English, “bus.” However, there is a slang or internet abbreviation as well, “biz.”
I want to brand our program using the abbreviation “biz“.
“.biz” is actually a top-level domain name and we could use it for a future website.
“biz” is kind of internet-speak slang, which you can think about in either a negative or positive way. Strictly speaking, it’s not proper English, and yet, its meaning is clear and implementing it in regards to our program could be seen as a radical branding approach to appeal to young people… Well, guess what? Our students are young, and we should appeal to them! In addition, many of our teachers are young (not me – I’m old and was actually told I look fifty by a particularly mean person yesterday), and we should be proud of having them on our team.
That being said, I’d like to present my first attempt at this proposed branding.
Logo:
This logo is 100% vector art created in Adobe Illustrator, and can therefore be scaled without loss to image quality (even poster size will look very smooth). It has been created with 2 spot colors, but can be printed cheaply with just one (the red arrow) or in gray scale.
Example usage on recruitment poster:
