UH image upgrade includes logo
By Beverly Creamer
Advertiser Education Writer
The next step in a sweeping effort by the University of Hawai'i to redefine its image for the next quarter-century takes place this afternoon when 15 potential new logos will be laid out in front of the UH Branding and Graphic Program Committee.
One of those logos will eventually replace the 150 or more images now used by programs and entities throughout the UH system. The new logo will go on brochures, the Web site, application forms and stationery. It will be stuck on the side of vehicles and emblazoned on shirts.
The search for a new logo is part of a sweeping branding campaign that also includes development of a so-called brand statement.
"You start with a statement and from there you develop the identity that reflects that statement," said Gloria Garvey, co-partner of Hawai'i's Brand Strategy Group. "You want to develop something that really reflects what it means to be educated in Hawai'i. ...
"We want to create the brand that will make students come, make alumni give us money, make faculty want to come here and make foundations realize we're worth giving $80 million to," said Garvey, whose company was hired by UH on a $62,000 contract to create the brand statement.
Branding has been a trend at colleges for the past 10 or 15 years, and UH has been out of step with the rest of the country in terms of creating a recognizable single image and marketing itself, said Paul Costello, UH vice president for external affairs.
His office has conducted research and interviews on what the community wants the university to stand for. Using this information, and the university's new strategic plan, Garvey said they've come up with a list of values expected in the brand — including aloha, collaboration and respect, diversity, accessibility, intellectual freedom, accountability, malama 'aina and sustainability.
"All of those values apply across every single program in the university," Garvey said. "The UH system would build its brand on basics, aloha being probably the highest value we have. The other is expressed in malama 'aina, sustainability.
"To me that value is really unique to Hawai'i. The UH has been called an economic engine and in other states, if you are, you don't have to pay attention to the life of the land, as you do here. So if we don't define the kind of economic engine we want the university to be, it's possible we could destroy the very lifestyle that keeps us all here in the first place."
What the branding won't do, Garvey said, is tamper with the athletic "H," developed by Kurt Osaki of Osaki Design in California. Most universities retain an athletic logo as a separate logo, she said.
And while the university's seal will be modernized, it's intent will not be altered. The seal will be used on diplomas, but it's the logo that will be used in all other advertising, she said.
"Right now you don't have an image for the University of Hawai'i," said Robert Rytter, who heads the Baltimore design firm Robert Rytter and Associates, which was awarded an $82,000 contract to create a logo for the university system.
"It's fractured. It's all over the place. It would be like Coca-Cola having 200 logos. Who would know what it was?" Rytter said.
The challenge is to come up with the right logo.
It's been so exciting, that Rytter and his team created 15, not the usual 10.
From those 15 the UH branding committee will choose three, and those final three will be widely disseminated for reaction. A campus survey will then eliminate one, and from those remaining two a final logo will be picked by the committee.
"We want a lot of feedback," Costello said. "This is an exciting project for the university. People have been waiting for this."
The cultural duality that is expected from the campus and the strategic plan is one of the most significant elements that will need to be expressed in the logo. Rytter sees it as "bilingualism," especially when it comes to signage throughout the campuses.
And if the branding campaign works for UH the way it did for others, such as Penn State, it will make it easier to raise money, recruit students, and land more top-rank faculty.
"You can have a great institution, but if the perception doesn't match reality, your success is limited," said Jeff Hermann, Penn State's Director of University Publications.
Five years after the successful branding and logo campaign at Penn State in 1987, the fund-raising campaign shot from its original goal of $200 million to $352 million, and the system was asked to join the Big Ten. An opinion poll even showed students were ranking Penn State 7th overall for educational quality, Hermann said.
"Was this all due to the logo? Definitely not," Hermann said. "But I am sure it was due to the total branding program of which the logo was the visible part. Overall we successfully raised the caliber of the university, and raised the image and the perception of the institution as well."
Before the branding campaign, Penn State had been deemed second tier, he said.
There are many similarities between the UH system and Penn State's, which has a multitude of two-year degree programs, dozens of different logos, and 24 campuses akin to community colleges.
"We live in a location with an enormous sense of 'ohana and spirit," Costello said, "and we've never really sold ourselves on everything Hawai'i represents.
"When you don't do that, you're missing a great opportunity to tell the story of the uniqueness of UH and Hawai'i. State institutions are notorious for sitting back and saying, 'We are here and they will come,' and you can't do that. That's obvious when you look at the competition just in Hawai'i alone."
In the spring, after a final logo is chosen, Costello's office will commit $500,000 to an advertising campaign run by Starr Seigle.
"You can't do all this work and then not commit the dollars to tell your story," he said. "When you have a clear message about your mission, and a consistent graphic approach, it certainly helps."
Reach Beverly Creamer at bcreamer@honoluluadvertiser.com or 525-8013.
