College sets sights on new logo

Chadron State is contracting with the international Logo Design Works agency to design a new logo for the institution, Marketing Coordinator Justin Haag said Monday.

Triggered by outdated signage and exacerbated by misuse, the college hopes to improve the continuity of its institutional identity by developing a new logo, Haag said.

“There’s quite a few marks out there,” he said. “We hope to create less confusion by bringing in the new mark.”

Haag said he and his College Relations staff noticed an increased use of the college’s athletics logo in cases where the institutional logo should have been used.

Noting the signage on the east and west sides of campus that features an outdated CSC logo, Haag said the timing for an identity update was ideal, as the decision coincides with the college’s plans to replace a majority of its signage.

“We’re looking to replace signage anyway,” Haag said. “Those outdated signs triggered the discussion of the logo and where we wanted to go.”

From its Cleveland office, Logo Design Works created three prototypes that the college presented Tuesday. The college is hosting another information session at 11 a.m. today in the Student Center’s Ponderosa Room.

The college is paying the graphic design agency $1,500 for its design services.

Haag said that the college is looking for feedback on the three designs, and that he hopes to have a design adopted soon.

“We’re just trying to get feedback at this point,” Haag said. “It’d be nice to adopt one by the end of the year.”

Haag also said the college wants to use as much of its current stationary and business cards as possible prior to the switch to prevent waste and save money.

“We don’t want to throw all that the current materials with the college’s logo] out and have a big waste,” Haag said. “We’re trying to inform the public now to prevent that.”

Haag said that the college uses on-campus sources for the majority of its signage.

“Anything we can produce [on campus], we do,” he said.

At the college’s Tuesday morning logo presentation, Haag and his team of five College Relations employees spoke to three audience members about identity branding.

Specifically, Haag provided an overview on the college’s past logos, addressed logo misuse, and the design process for the proposed logo.

CSC instituted its former logo, an eagle flying over a pillar, in 2000, before adopting the current logo in 2007. The college’s athletics logo was implemented in 2006.

The prototype designs incorporate the athletic logo’s “C” with the words “Chadron State College.”

“It seems that the general trend [in logo design] is toward simplicity,” Daniel Binkard, graphic design artist, said.

Haag said that the prototype logo’s design, including fonts, colors, and the symbol, is not finalized, and may be still be revised. Also, he said individuals could use the logo as one element, or two separated parts-symbol and text.

The College Relations Department has printed comment cards for each of the three designs and encourages the campus community to fill them out and place them in a box next to the logo display in the Student Center.