Sept. 17, 2025
Contact: Cary Littlejohn, carylittlejohn@missouri.edu
Photo by Abbie Lankitus
Karen Schmidt, BFA ’85, left a mark on the University of Missouri. Literally.
The longtime Mizzou employee, who retired from the Office of Continuing Education for Health Professionals in August, can’t turn her head in Columbia without being reminded of the early days of her career. Because in those early days, while working as a graphic designer in the Office of Publications and Alumni Communications, she created a lasting piece of Mizzou iconography: the MU logo.
You know the one. It’s at the top of this very page. (And the bottom of it, too.) It’s the profile picture of Mizzou’s official Instagram account. It’s on signage for the numerous MU Health Care medical clinics. It’s prominently featured on the stonework that welcomes people onto campus. It’s been newly added to the concrete in front of Jesse Hall as part of recent improvements to Francis Quadrangle. It is, without exaggeration, everywhere.
Two gold capital letters — M stacked on top of U — united in a shield shape made by a black outline. And if you stare at the center of it, your eyes might just ask your brain, “Wait — is that a mule head between those letters?”
That was Schmidt’s creation.
A grand design
Schmidt was still relatively new in her career when Chancellor Haskell Monroe approached her team requesting an updated logo for Mizzou.
“The university was celebrating its sesquicentennial,” Schmidt said.
And what says 150 years like a brand-new logo?
The assignment was originally given to one of her colleagues, and his initial design was seen as a bit too “athletic,” Schmidt remembered. The first idea was a block-letter M, and it reminded those who saw it of the University of Michigan.
“So, he changed the design, and it was what we called very ‘corporate-looking,’” Schmidt said. “Chancellor Monroe was not happy with it. The designer wasn’t happy with it, either. He just got tired of fussing with it, going back and forth over the designs, and finally said, ‘I’m passing it off.’”
That’s how the assignment landed on Schmidt’s desk.
She liked some of what the previous designer had started in the corporate version: the stacked configuration, the way the black outline connected the letters into a unified shape.
“I liked that it sort of made a shield,” Schmidt said.
And with that as her foundation, she began iterating on the idea, looking for the one that not only looked right but felt right.
She was doing this work before the widespread adoption of computers for design. The alumni magazine was printed out of a shop on the north side of town, and the design options were limited to what that shop could print.
“They gave us a book and said, ‘This is what we carry; you can pick a font out of these,’” Schmidt said. “I was just going through the book and stacking things on top of one another. I truly don’t even know what font I used.”
But it turned out to be perfect. Not just because it’s been in use for more than 30 years now, but because of a happy little accident: the mule head.
Look again at the logo. The negative space between the stacked letters creates a distinct mule shape: The ears are formed by the lines and serifs on the bottom of the M, and the muzzle is formed by the rounded space inside the U.
It was the perfect touch for Missouri’s land-grant university.
The only catch? It wasn’t actually part of Schmidt’s design.
“People say that Chancellor Monroe asked for that specifically,” she said. “But he didn’t. It’s really just a coincidence. I walked into my office one day when I had all these MUs taped up on the wall. And my coworker had drawn the mule out, and I thought ‘Oh, my gosh! It really does look like a mule.’”
Truman the Tiger (Karen’s version)
The MU logo isn’t the only substantial piece of Mizzou iconography that came from Schmidt’s hand. In 2021, Truman the Tiger got an updated design for his 35th birthday. He hadn’t been redesigned since the late 1980s — when Schmidt first redesigned him.
It was 1988, and Truman the Tiger had just gotten a new costume. Missouri Alumnus magazine, in a small section called “College Town,” featured a write-up of the National Mascot Championship in which Dan Meers, then a junior, had just earned second place out of more than 100 mascots.
“I drew his face for ‘College Town,’ because the older design didn’t look anything like the actual mascot,” Schmidt said. The drawing in the magazine still features her name — K. Schmidt.
“And that was Truman until about four years ago,” she said.
For a long time, Schmidt couldn’t turn her head without seeing her version of Truman. He was even put on a license plate, holding, of all things, the MU logo that Schmidt had designed.
When Schmidt would see that license plate as she was driving around Columbia, she felt a rush of pride.
“The license plate was cool,” she said. “I’d pull up behind somebody and see that on the plate, and I’d think, ‘I designed that.’”
As Schmidt settles into retirement, it’s not likely she will forget her connection to Mizzou. It isn’t just her alma mater. It’s where two of her three children attended college. It’s where she worked for more than three decades.
But if those connections weren’t enough, all she needs to do is look around — around Mizzou’s campus, around greater Columbia — to be reminded of not only her education and career, but of her lasting contribution to Missouri’s flagship university.
