Memorial's brand
With more than 60,000 alumni in virtually all fields of endeavour, Memorial University is a place where people and ideas become – where ingenuity and creativity are uniquely fostered.
Since 2006, we've worked to capture and express this message in words and pictures.
Background:
Memorial University's brand was presented to faculty, staff, regents, students, and alumni leaders, as the first step in a new institutional marketing program. The brand concept focused on the idea of transformation – that Memorial is the place that people and ideas become. The word/concept Become is shorthand for these characteristics; since the launch the word has become imbued with more and deeper meanings that reflect our university.
The brand identity included a new, more modern institutional logo and a design concept that used silhouettes and selected fonts and colours to illustrate the meaning of the brand and unify university promotional publications and activities.
That said, the legal name of the university did not change. We remained "Memorial University of Newfoundland". The university's coat of arms did not change. However, like many other organizations (including universities), we created a simplified logo to facilitate communications. This shortened form of our name reflects our origins as a living war memorial and help avoid the differences between the official names of the university and province. Further, our research showed that there is no other Memorial University.
Many organizations have shortened their official name for ease of communications. Similar cases are the University of New Brunswick which developed a new logo around its acronym UNB, Sir Wilfred Laurier University which uses as its logo the word mark Laurier, and McGill University which calls itself McGill.
The traditional logo adopted in 1994 (comprising the university's coat of arms and full name) will continue to be used for official, ceremonial purposes (such as on degree parchments and Convocation programs) where its intricate elements can be reproduced accurately.
The brand identity is now well incorporated into Memorial's activities and publications. The first publication imbued with the branding elements was Research Matters, the annual report for research activities at Memorial.
