From the Nominator

Cal Poly worked for nearly two years to realign and refresh its brand strategy, visuals, and narrative to stand on its strong reputation while reaching for several ambitious goals, including bolstering a national reputation. The University Marketing team and firm partner, SimpsonScarborough, took on a thorough brand development process to ensure the university’s future authentically reflected the spirit of its stakeholders on campus and around the world. The visual brand took on the challenge of preserving beloved characteristics of legacy elements while creating tools the university would need to tell a new chapter of its story distinct from other competing universities. The research process helped Cal Poly’s final visual language evolve from a print-first approach into a digitally accessible brand through deliberate colors, type styles, and graphics. Logo architecture would also streamline significantly to establish a more consistent identity for the institution. The result is a durable, data-driven, active brand engineered to showcase Cal Poly’s people and problem-solving rooted in California and impacting our world. For the first time in the university’s history, the brand has the capacity to connect Cal Poly’s past, present, and future.

From the Judges

This is a comprehensive rebrand that maintains the historically important elements of the existing brand, yet embraces a refresh across all of the elements of the institution’s visual identity. We applaud the use of thorough vetting of the design, and the use of qualitative and quantitative approaches to testing.