The Associated Students of the University of California, Davis (ASUCD) is a student run organization that provides campus events, services, jobs, and leadership opportunities for the student body.
Students commonly identified ASUCD with student government and had negative misconceptions. Major inconsistencies with internal branding also made it difficult for students to know what ASUCD encompassed. To break away from these generalizations, Creative Media was tasked with rebranding the entire association in a more positive and friendly manner.
ASUCD is composed of three groups:
16 UNITS: student-run organizations and businesses that enhance campus life
12 COMMITTEES: serve in the legislative portion of ASUCD to write and review bills
7 COMMISSIONS: advise the ASUCD senate to guarantee that students are properly represented.
The old logo had a cold and formal tone, which caused people to link ASUCD solely with student government. They often forgot about the other opportunities the association offered, such as campus jobs and leadership development. Unit logos were extremely inconsistent and illustrated the lack of unity within ASUCD.
So how do we rebrand an entire association and restore years of brokenness? We needed to refocus on the purpose of ASUCD and our audience: students.
To explore the type of brand we wanted to communicate, we came up with three different stylescapes. These themes helped us guide our process as we discovered what type of personality we wanted our new ASUCD to portray.
As we were studying the association, we saw that every unit represented a different part of campus. And with history of disunity, we wanted the new logo to symbolize community and inclusiveness. The circle was a perfect shape that could illustrate our beliefs and represent ASUCD.
The new logo is composed of five dots over the wordmark. The four circles on the right side stand for the four pillars of ASUCD that encompasses our units and services: Basic Services, Media, Advocacy, and Social. The single circle to the left represents how all of ASUCD is one body and one entity.
These five dots show that each part of ASUCD is equally important and relies on everybody’s contribution.
Our next step was redesigning all of the individual, internal logos. To continue the new identity, we reimagined logos into circular icons. This would create unity throughout the association while still uniquely representing each unit. We created logo lockups to be paired with the icon while including the ASUCD wordmark.
To further expand the rebrand, we began redesigning the website to help our audience understand who we represent and what we stand for. Other materials included social media postings, animation videos, and various types of merchandise.
To be honest, this was a daunting project because of the huge responsibility. We were tasked with rebranding an entire association with a history of 100 years that impacted every current and future student on campus.
One of the biggest challenges I faced was learning how to confidently stand up for my designs while considering additional opinions from our audience. We wanted people to be pleased with our work, but we also had to make careful design choices and think about the bigger picture.
Despite the initial stress and panic, my team and I worked diligently to produce a brand that we are so incredibly proud of. It’s been a little less than a year since we officially launched and it’s rewarding to hear how the brand is now being recognized around campus.