Unified brand standards
June 30, 2020 10:01 AM

Dear Colleagues, 

For nearly a year, the team in the Office of Strategic Marketing and Branding has been hard at work developing new brand standards that will align the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign as a single, unified brand. I’m pleased to share that those brand standards, and the guide that will help us all adopt them, will be released next week.

In anticipation of that release, I want to stress how critical this brand strategy is in our collective efforts to elevate the university and connect in powerful ways with our key audiences. It is my expectation that all units across campus will begin adopting and implementing the new brand materials and guidelines over the next six-to-twelve months.

I also want to share how excited I am about the brand that Eric Minor, our Chief Marketing Officer, and his team have developed. The brand is research-based and audience-driven. It celebrates the incredible strength of the university as a whole, while providing flexibility for individual units to celebrate what sets them apart. Most importantly, the brand was developed in collaboration and conversation with many marketing professionals and leaders across campus, and it will further unite us as one bold voice, sharing the University of Illinois story and the Power of I. 

When the brand guidelines are released next week, I encourage everyone to visit the website and learn more about the strategies, messaging, website standards and visual identity that will drive our brand. We should all strive to embody it, no matter what our role is at the university. By this time next year, I look forward to seeing the brand elements everywhere I look across campus, and reaching out across our state, nation and the world.

Sincerely,

Robert J. Jones
Chancellor