They've changed the font already. You can see this by comparing eecs.berkeley.edu and berkeley.edu. It seems that they're still using Freight but bolded it. It's unclear to me why they didn't do ALL CAPS as well.
Somebody on the marketing team is a Bruin (maybe all of them). Who in their right mind submits a logo design that easily confuses people with FUCLA? We should take a page from Ohio State's playbook. Years ago, there was apparently confusion by some regarding Ohio University vs. Ohio State University. Solution? The Buckeyes are now THE Ohio State University! Likewise, administrators and alumni should start referring to Cal as THE University of California. Every UC campus after us was just an add-on, especially the rip-off campus in L.A.
Thanks for clarifying the new branding, and linking the Cal athletics brand guide
Hate that they changed the Haas center court from Cal to the state outline logo. It's fine on a t-shirt (although I'll never buy one) but on center court?!!!
Get over yourself. I can't believe time and money was spent on this woke ridiculousness. Talking about the "inclusivity" and "community " of the letter B is absolute nonsense. And wtf is a branding taskforce? There are no words.
15 years in marketing. I recognize this as what happens when you pay an agency too much money to do an easy job.
I read through the task force doc, and the task should be a simple brand review to find opportunities to update the guidelines to incorporate Cal and Berkeley identities across the portfolio. The document says nothing about screen legibility or the need to update the logo fonts.
This is the guy overseeing the Marketing team, by the way: (https://www.linkedin.com/in/holmesp/). The guy has worked at no other major universities, has no branding background, and has nothing in his background to suggest that he understands how to handle reverent brands. With a guy this inexperienced, I'm not surprised that he just let the Agency do whatever they wanted to.
This is the obvious result of overpaying an Agency to do X. To justify the pay, they went off and did Y and Z. Then you've got an unqualified and inexperienced unable to keep the agency focused and on-task. What you're left with this garbage and a sunk cost fallacy.
Like who the hell is this guy and how the hell is he even qualified to be Executive Director of Communications & Marketing? Berkeley scraping the bottom of the barrel for marketing talent if this is the best they can do.
Bk* is the obvious answer here. Logos and marketing are tools to distinguish one thing from another. Does any other Power 5 university have an element named after it? Bk would set us apart from the football and basketball mills that are masquerading as serious academic institutions. Cf (Californium) might be another option, but the Bk symbol looks more iconic.
There is only one Cal and it’s in Berkeley. Don’t need to be the ‘B’s. Our symbol is the big C for Cal. Enough second guessing as there is zero chance of getting all of the parts of the campus on the same page about anything.
He was already in the executive sweet. He may not be the top shot caller but as the vice-provost of innovation and money grabbing, I would guess he's been in on these conversations already.
Not surprising, but my sense is that foreign people and, even, east of the Rockies Americans, know UCLA much better due to their sports teams, particularly going back to John Wooden’s era. I read in the WSJ that Kirby Smart told the President of University of Georgia that, with the right support, Bulldog Football would vastly increase interest from foreign and out-of-state students and allow significant increases in tuition. And they bought in and Kirby did it. There’s a lesson there and they are still called The Georgia Bulldogs, not “Athens”
They've changed the font already. You can see this by comparing eecs.berkeley.edu and berkeley.edu. It seems that they're still using Freight but bolded it. It's unclear to me why they didn't do ALL CAPS as well.
I’m ok with Berkeley without the smaller University of California underneath but they should have kept the traditional Big C
That might have been the right balance to keeping or improving the connections between academics and sports
How can they screw this up so badly?
Somebody on the marketing team is a Bruin (maybe all of them). Who in their right mind submits a logo design that easily confuses people with FUCLA? We should take a page from Ohio State's playbook. Years ago, there was apparently confusion by some regarding Ohio University vs. Ohio State University. Solution? The Buckeyes are now THE Ohio State University! Likewise, administrators and alumni should start referring to Cal as THE University of California. Every UC campus after us was just an add-on, especially the rip-off campus in L.A.
Thanks for clarifying the new branding, and linking the Cal athletics brand guide
Hate that they changed the Haas center court from Cal to the state outline logo. It's fine on a t-shirt (although I'll never buy one) but on center court?!!!
Give me a "B"!
"Cal Berkeley is Not acceptable"...
Get over yourself. I can't believe time and money was spent on this woke ridiculousness. Talking about the "inclusivity" and "community " of the letter B is absolute nonsense. And wtf is a branding taskforce? There are no words.
15 years in marketing. I recognize this as what happens when you pay an agency too much money to do an easy job.
I read through the task force doc, and the task should be a simple brand review to find opportunities to update the guidelines to incorporate Cal and Berkeley identities across the portfolio. The document says nothing about screen legibility or the need to update the logo fonts.
Here's the doc, by the way. I'll also add that this looks like something an undergrad or intern would do: https://chancellor.berkeley.edu/sites/default/files/berkeley_cal_identity_task_force_recommendations_3.pdf
This is the guy overseeing the Marketing team, by the way: (https://www.linkedin.com/in/holmesp/). The guy has worked at no other major universities, has no branding background, and has nothing in his background to suggest that he understands how to handle reverent brands. With a guy this inexperienced, I'm not surprised that he just let the Agency do whatever they wanted to.
This is the obvious result of overpaying an Agency to do X. To justify the pay, they went off and did Y and Z. Then you've got an unqualified and inexperienced unable to keep the agency focused and on-task. What you're left with this garbage and a sunk cost fallacy.
A cousin of a UC Regent probably made a lot of money coming up with this BS. Hope he bought some high quality cocaine with it.
We literally have THE foremost authority on Branding on our Faculty...and this is the best we can do.?? https://haas.berkeley.edu/faculty/david-a-aaker/
Instead, we went with THIS guy as the co-chair on the Berkeley/Cal identity task force:
https://www.linkedin.com/in/holmesp/
Like who the hell is this guy and how the hell is he even qualified to be Executive Director of Communications & Marketing? Berkeley scraping the bottom of the barrel for marketing talent if this is the best they can do.
Hail to CALIFORNIA, alma mater dear!
Bk* is the obvious answer here. Logos and marketing are tools to distinguish one thing from another. Does any other Power 5 university have an element named after it? Bk would set us apart from the football and basketball mills that are masquerading as serious academic institutions. Cf (Californium) might be another option, but the Bk symbol looks more iconic.
* Still no Stanfordium.
Get ready for a bunch of "BK, have it your way" jokes, though.
What a catastrophic joke!
I still like calling it the University of California and I'm still missing my big C cap.
There is only one Cal and it’s in Berkeley. Don’t need to be the ‘B’s. Our symbol is the big C for Cal. Enough second guessing as there is zero chance of getting all of the parts of the campus on the same page about anything.
Can Rich get in the Chancellor role sooner please…
He was already in the executive sweet. He may not be the top shot caller but as the vice-provost of innovation and money grabbing, I would guess he's been in on these conversations already.
Why is bureaucracy so good at monkey-pawing
Not surprising, but my sense is that foreign people and, even, east of the Rockies Americans, know UCLA much better due to their sports teams, particularly going back to John Wooden’s era. I read in the WSJ that Kirby Smart told the President of University of Georgia that, with the right support, Bulldog Football would vastly increase interest from foreign and out-of-state students and allow significant increases in tuition. And they bought in and Kirby did it. There’s a lesson there and they are still called The Georgia Bulldogs, not “Athens”