WU’s Rebranding Initiative will be hitting campus this February
Pieces of Winthrop University’s logo are missing on certain signs across campus. The brick sign in front of Legion parking lot, the sign going down Alumni Drive from Cherry Road and the trash cans in front of Wofford and Richardson Halls are all missing a familiar symbol. The logo of the Tillman clock tower has not been stolen, but rather will soon be replaced via Winthrop’s rebranding initiative.
Katie Price, Director of Marketing at Winthrop, is leading the creation of the new logo, which she said is part of a larger goal that has been in the works for years.
“A new logo is just one piece of a larger rebranding project we are working on for the university. The discussion around embarking on a rebranding initiative for Winthrop began in 2015. Many schools evaluate their branding every few years, and Winthrop had not done so since 1992. A university-wide rebranding project is a large undertaking, so it took a great deal of planning to get to a point where we could put a plan into motion,” Price said.
Winthrop employed the help of an advertising agency based out of Tennessee.
“In October 2016, we began work with FMB Advertising out of Knoxville, Tennessee. FMB has over 30 years of experience in higher education marketing,” Price said.
Price said that there is a lot of work involved in ensuring the rebranding really speaks to the message that Winthrop wants to give.
“The early stages of our work with FMB involved research with internal and external audiences to identify Winthrop’s strengths and how we are perceived as an institution. We first had to understand what makes Winthrop special in the eyes of those who know us, and from there, we could determine the best way to tell that story to the world, which includes looking at our visual identity and our overall messaging. Specifically related to the logo work, that has been in process over several months, considering many different creative directions and garnering feedback from many different groups including students, staff, faculty and alumni,” Price said.
”We are happy that we will be unveiling the new logo to our campus family on Thursday, February 22, at 11am in DIGS Lobby (invitation to campus coming soon!). After the unveiling, you will begin to see it in use on campus immediately in a few places, and then progressively more and more over the next year,” Price said.
Price said that after a long process, the rebranding has arrived at a place that Winthrop is excited to reveal.
“There were many dynamics to consider, and many wonderful, creative ideas considered in the early stages. Our own University Communications and Marketing team collaborated closely with the team at FMB, working through ideas and arriving at a version we wanted to test with audiences to get a sense of the direction we needed to go from there. Our discussions with students, faculty, staff and alumni were incredibly constructive and insightful – we learned a great deal, and it helped us feel confident in how we needed to proceed. We then went further and got more feedback from some prospective students. Ultimately, we arrived at a final version that we love and are excited to share with everyone,” Price said.
The new logo will be unveiled on Thursday, Feb. 22 at 11am in the Digiorgio Campus center. After the reveal, the logo will began to be placed around campus.
