UNT 1890 Soft Rebrand

In Brief

This video tells the story of the university, showcasing the rebrand narrative in its fullest capacity.

The Need: The University of North Texas was approaching its 125th anniversary and needed to evolve its brand after the the Green Light to Greatness campaign came to a close.

Skills In This Case Study:

  • Brand Management
  • Brand Design
  • Project Management

The Result: 125 years of being a university celebrated through a brand strategy reflected in messaging, narrative, and media of all types.

Refined Requirements

In addition to celebrating the university’s anniversary, the UNT 1890 campaign would serve to buy time for the next major rebrand.

Brand Needs:

  • A concise visual design that provided clarity in all contexts
  • A design that would be easily trained, understood and executed
  • Management of the brand as passed down to internal partners
  • Brand guidelines to support management of the brand design

Art Direction Needs:

  • Collaboration and consultation with internal partners that allowed for their own creative visions but matched the brand design
  • Art direction leadership that was consistent with previous direction but distinct enough to reflect a new effort

Research

As with any project, the following topics were researched and made part of a general synthesis for the rebrand

  • Lessons learned from the Green Light to Greatness brand campaign, from concept to implementation
  • Anniversary campaigns by other universities and large organizations
  • Short-term campaigns and their implementation
  • General design research to determine visual language

Synthesis and Direction

With research completed, these directives would guide the UNT 1890 rebrand:

  • Simplicity in messaging, “UNT, Established 1890”, a faster read than the previous tagline
  • Simplicity in design, speeding up design and implementation time across the university and its partners
  • Simplicity in guidelines to speed up compliance and create design flexibility
  • Simplicity in design and message would provide a distinction between the previous campaign and this one, with common UNT elements providing continuity

Implementation

  • The previous campaign implementation laid the groundwork for the 1890 campaign:
    • Asset update processes were leveraged for this campaign
    • Guidelines were quickly updated and used in internal training sessions
    • Internal partners were already established, speeding up collaboration and feedback
    • Most external partners were established as well, with similar efficiencies