We are pleased to announce that the TASIS family of schools, which was established when M. Crist Fleming founded The American School in Switzerland in 1956, will soon be using a new set of crests.
The impetus for the new crest sprang from the TASIS Foundation Board’s desire to see the TASIS motto—Verum, Bonum, Pulchrum(or Truth, Goodness, Beauty)—included within the crest itself. These three words, which are also prominently displayed on the façade of the M. Crist Fleming Library, have inspired Western educators since the time of Plato, who recognized them as fundamental values by which anything can be exhaustively judged.
These supreme ideals also apply to the specific dimensions of human existence—Truth to thought and logic, Goodness to action and morals, and Beauty to enjoyment and aesthetics—that are emphasized in the TASIS Mission Statement, which notes that each TASIS school seeks to balance the pursuit of knowledge with the love of wisdom while promoting the skills of lifelong learning, an appreciation for beauty, and the development of character.
The M. Crist Fleming Library
With the support of the TASIS Foundation Board, we worked with Weymouth Griffin Design, an American design firm, to find a way to weave the motto into the existing crest. Weymouth Griffin’s talented illustrators also redrew the four symbols on the crest—the tower (culture), the lamp (wisdom), the sun (truth), and the book (knowledge)—made minor adjustments to the typography, and modified the color layout while retaining the blue-and-red color scheme that defines the Canton of Ticino and inspired the original TASIS crest in 1956.
Blue and red disappeared from the TASIS crest in 1960 and remained absent until 1999, which is the last time the crest was altered. Kate Gonzalez, Director of Alumni Affairs at the time, discussed the evolution of the crest in the introduction to that year’s TASIS Today, noting, “The red, blue, and white colors reflect our ties to the United States, Great Britain, Switzerland, and the Canton Ticino, the original inspiration for our first seal in 1956.”
While the new crest displayed at the top of this article will serve as an institutional crest representing the full family of TASIS schools, Weymouth Griffin also created customized versions for the individual TASIS schools in Switzerland, England, Puerto Rico, and Portugal to ensure uniformity and brand consistency—including various iterations for each school, as the full crest with the ribbon is not the ideal option for every situation. See a number of examples below.
We will begin to phase in the new versions of the crest in the coming weeks, with the understanding that there will be some overlap as the previous iterations are phased out over time. We also plan to work on a new version of our athletics logo and look forward to sharing that later this year.
While we certainly understand that not everyone is a fan of change, we hope the majority of our constituents will view this as a step in the right direction as we look to strengthen the TASIS brand and improve uniformity across our family of schools. Thank you for your support!
