The University's logo designed by A. Faris shows a phoenix, a mythical bird with splendid plumage, reputed to live in the Arabian Desert. Fabled to be the only one of its kind, it lived for five or six centuries, after which it burned itself to death on a funeral pyre of aromatic twigs ignited by the sun and fanned by its own wings. It rose from the ashes with renewed youth to live through another cycle. Such a symbol is a fitting reminder of the way in which the City of Coventry rebuilt itself after suffering devastation during the Second World War.