The marketing team at the University of Dallas has been busy revamping the University of Dallas brand.
Clare Venegas, vice president of marketing and communications, said the rebranding included “a refresh of our actual logo, our marks and an adaptation of the seal.”
“The university’s seal will continue to be used for formal occasions, such as commencement and presidential communications,” according to a memo concerning branding sent out to faculty and staff of the University of Dallas.
Venegas, who has been a major influence in the branding process, said the seal will have an optimized version adapted for smaller fonts and scales.
“Part of the challenge with the seal itself and adapting it in smaller formats in particular is that it loses a lot of that detail. It’s not scalable, especially in a digital platform,” said Venegas.
The University of Dallas also unveiled “a new wordmark and logo that focus on the triquetra, which is the center symbol of the seal and a symbol of the Holy Trinity,” according to the branding memo.
In addition, the University of Dallas wordmark has been changed to a more elegant typeface called Minion Pro, according to the university’s newly-released brand guide.
“We wanted to have a more classic and timeless look as opposed to the font that was used previously for the last however many years which probably started to look a little dated in its form,” said Venegas.
This wordmark and logo are visible on the university’s website, social media and around campus.
Included in the update are new signs around campus, new guidelines for fonts and formatting and a restructured university website slated for soft launch in November and an official launch in the new calendar year.
UD athletics has not been left out of the new changes either.
“The other big significant change is that we actually have a brand guide now for athletics. We have a whole suite of athletics marks. We have an official MAC icon for the Crusader mascot. We have a new UD monogram, so you’ll start to see that on some of the athletics and then you’ll start to see it on jerseys,” said Venegas.
Sean Hannigan, a senior biochemistry major and outfielder for the UD baseball team (#7) , said that while he likes the older version of the logo, the new one will look great on the uniforms. “Generally, I prefer the old one but the new one is slick,” Hannigan said.
The process of designing and implementing the new branding and style guide took several phases of research and planning beginning in 2021. Surveys were conducted with alumni donors and current students with the aim of gathering feedback and input on both the current UD branding and what they might want or expect of it in the future.
Prospective students were then surveyed to find out what marketing efforts were the most attractive to them and best represented the UD experience.
UD is emphasizing the importance of the whole human experience. “The real driving creative theme was to try to align the university’s look to the ideas that President Stanford has really set forth,” said Venegas. “This idea of really pursuing an excellence in everything that we do and I think that also begins with how we portray ourselves in our digital identity.”
This emphasis on the excellence of the whole person culminates in UD’s new branding slogan. “You will begin to see our new brand platform — ‘A Life Well-Lived’ — incorporated into a variety of new marketing collateral and our new website which is scheduled to debut early next year,” according to the memo.
The new branding and style guide is on the MyUD intranet system which can be found at udallas.edu/myud.