There is no more “at” in the University of Colorado at Colorado Springs.
Martin Wood, vice chancellor, University Advancement, led an overview Wednesday of a branding effort in the works for more than 18 months that includes revisions to the UCCS logo, setting of standards for everything from web pages to business cards, identification of four core messages, and the loss of a two-letter preposition.
“We are University of Colorado Colorado Springs, no at, no comma, no hyphen,” Wood said. “I’m well aware that Microsoft Word will tell you that you have repeated a word and underline it in red but that’s the way it’s going to be.”
The change is all part of an effort to make CU campuses, the CU System, the CU Board of Regents and the CU Foundation more consistent in how they are viewed by prospective students, donors, legislators and members of the general public. All CU campuses will now be devoid of punctuation between their geographic location and all divisions of the university will use the same colors and typefaces in logos and other official communication.
The campuses and the CU Foundation will also be unified by four themes which are designed to capture what CU faculty, staff and students are about.
The themes are:
- Learning and Teaching
- Discovery and Innovation
- Community and Culture
- Health and Wellness
“Since these four themes encompass everything we do, there shouldn’t be a problem fitting your individual project into them,” Wood said.
The change also means the end of dozens of individual department and school logos that serve to blur the image of the university and confuse those who receive university communication.
In a PowerPoint presentation, Wood showed illustrations of the various logos that are now the official signatures of CU institutions. For example, the university seal is the logo for the regents; the system logo is the gold interlocking CU on a gray background set in a square and University of Colorado printed next to it, with Boulder, Colorado Springs, Denver and Anschutz Medical Campus in smaller type below the letters. The same gold interlocking CU on gray will be used by the University of Colorado Foundation. The buffalo will be for the exclusive use of Boulder campus athletics; the mountain lion for the exclusive use of UCCS athletics.
An overview of the logos used by the CU campuses, the Board of Regents and the CU Foundation is available at www.cu.edu/brand.
Wood said materials produced for specific colleges, departments and programs may contain individual representations and illustrations in a subordinate position to the official university and campus logos. Campus business cards will use a choice of the UCCS logo or a variation of the university seal.
Departments should use existing supplies of materials. New projects should follow the standards set in the UCCS Graphic Design Standards Manual available at www.uccs.edu/brand.
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