Gorilla Joe
Gorilla Joe is the mascot and current logo of STAR. He was created in March 2012 by Toby Marsh, as part of a t-shirt design competition. It is unknown where the name "Joe" comes from.
Gorilla Joe has featured in numerous promotional graphics on Facebook.
Early Life
The first confirmed sighting of Gorilla Joe is the t-shirt competition, on 1st March 2012. The competition came down to three final designs, with Facebook likes on each design counting as votes. Gorilla Joe won with 418 votes, with Teodora Filipescu's design coming second with 349 votes. Third place received 60 votes.
The legitimacy of Gorilla Joe's birth was brought into question with the discovery of an (unconfirmed) sighting from 2006. [Source: "2006 Launch Night"]
Gorilla Joe was also spotted on the wall of the studio in October 2012, after Toby Marsh painted him there. A time-lapse of the painting's creation was published by Lightbox.
Gorilla Joe was later spotted 89 times during STAR's "Spot Gorilla Joe" competition of Freshers' Week 2014. The competition also ran a year earlier in 2013, but appears to have received less attention, despite having 10 Starfields tickets up for grabs. [Source]
Logos
The original logo is still in use on the website, merchandise, and numerous promotional materials, with only minor changes, namely the font of the word "STAR" on the headphones. The main picture of STAR's Facebook page usually shows a different iteration of Gorilla Joe each year. The 2019/20 version was designed by Aaron Jessop, with a different colour scheme used for the profile picture of STAR's Facebook, Instagram, and Twitter accounts.
Facebook Account
Gorilla Joe has had a Facebook account since October 2014. The account's display name is "G'rilla Joe", since "Gorilla" is not an acceptable name, according to Facebook.
The account originally shared only a few posts about committee applications, and was inactive from April 2015 to May 2019. The account now tends to share content from the STAR page, Hearing Aid page, and starTV YouTube channel, often a few weeks after they were originally published.
The account frequently leaves comments thanking people for supporting STAR.
Since 2019/20, it is tradition for the new Station Manager to marry G'rilla Joe on Facebook, similar to tradition of the SSC Charities Convener marring the Rory McLion account on Facebook. G'rilla Joe has a long-standing feud with Rory McLion, sparked by Rory's refusal of marriage, and fuelled by Rory's immense popularity within the student population, often being invited to events such as the (?) Mascot Beach Run, whilst Gorilla Joe is left in the dark confines of the studio.
Spotify Account
STAR's official Spotify account is under the name G'rilla Joe, and is linked to his Facebook account.