Wake Forest Athletics Refreshes Its Brand
10/1/2019 9:00:00 AM | General
The Wake Forest Athletics brand has a fresh, new look. The changes, while subtle, reflect an updated take on a brand that is rich in history and tradition. The new look is the result of a two-year partnership with Nike's Global Identity Group (GIG) aimed at creating more consistency, helping Wake Forest capture new audiences in an authentic and meaningful way, and exploring ways to enhance the Demon Deacon brand on a national level.
"I really like how everything looks more consistent now," explained junior volleyball player Caroline Kuhn. "It's really cool to have a font that is unique to Wake Forest, and the new logo is fresh and updated but still classy and traditional. I also like the addition of the color grey and my teammates and I are excited about our new grey uniforms."
"We're excited about the new logos being represented around our facility and on our jerseys," said redshirt senior football player Justin Strnad. "We love the new branding and Wake Forest Athletics will shine in this new era Wake look!"
Each year Nike invites an average of four schools to participate in the GIG process during which the Nike team conducts a comprehensive brand audit and design assessment and provides recommendations based on their findings. Wake Forest Athletics engaged in the partnership with Nike in the fall of 2017 in an effort to enhance its branding and create a more consistent look across all of its teams. Consistency is a key element in branding, and with varying shades of gold and differing font and number styles, the overall look of Wake Forest jerseys, merchandise, collateral, signage, and other items had become rather inconsistent over the years.
"I was excited to learn after being appointed director of athletics that Wake Forest had engaged over the previous year with our long-time partners at Nike to evaluate our marks and colors," Wake Forest Director of Athletics John Currie said. "We have a strong brand identity and the additional marks and color update strengthen our story even more."
Gallery: (10/1/2019) Wake Forest Branding
The GIG team kicked off the process with a visit to Wake Forest during which they took tours of the campus and athletic facilities, interviewed a variety of key stakeholders from coaches, staff and student-athletes, to alumni, fans and University personnel, and began conducting an extensive brand audit and design assessment. Throughout the ensuing 18 months, Wake Forest Athletics and the GIG team collaborated closely, reviewing and refining recommendations, conducting additional interviews and focus groups, and ultimately, developing a refreshed look that incorporates subtle enhancements to the WF mark, an updated color palette, a new custom font, and the introduction of two additional complementary official marks. The enhancements will provide a more consistent, unified, updated look across all teams while also helping the Demon Deacons' retail and branding partners better serve the fans with the official Wake Forest Athletics brand across a wide range of apparel, applications and media.
"Through a nearly two year process, and with the engagement of student-athletes, coaches, administration and alumni; Wake Forest and the Nike GIG Team partnered to help refresh and refine their athletic brand identity," explained Sean Butterly, art director for Nike GIG. "Always working with the ethos of "Respect the Past. Represent the Future," both sides collaborated to create a modern athletics brand that honors and supports the rich history, traditions and spirit of the Demon Deacons. The updated and cohesive identity elements, including logos, colors and typography, will drive consistency while remaining flexible to keep pace with the athletic department's evolving needs."
When it comes to communicating the Wake Forest Athletics brand, color is quintessential. Over the years, the use of varying shades of gold led to inconsistency within uniforms, print materials, apparel and other merchandise, while a limited color palette consisting of only black and gold restricted teams to a minimal number of uniform color combinations. With the updated look, Wake Forest Athletics has standardized its gold, marrying the more traditional gold with a shade that is more practical to use in print production and will appear more consistent across a variety of fabric types and other mediums. The color palette has also been updated with the addition of dark steel grey, a color that reflects the hard-nosed toughness of Demon Deacon student-athletes and will be a fitting accent to the classic black and gold. Metallic gold remains in the color palette for limited use.
The new Wake Forest Athletics font and numeral set was designed to draw on elements of traditional Wake Forest styles fused with modern foundational forms and universal functionality. The strong block typography is an essential component of the Wake Forest Athletics heritage, as it speaks to the no-nonsense, hardworking nature of players, coaches and fans. In addition to the familiar Wake Forest wordmark, fans may also notice more frequent use of "Wake" on uniforms, apparel and other materials.
Although very subtle, the "WF" mark also has been given a slight refresh to make it more functional. By making very small tweaks to the letters and spacing, the WF mark is now cleaner and easier to reproduce across a wide range of uniforms, apparel, applications and media.
The introduction of two new complementary official marks is another exciting element of the updated branding. A top hat joins the popular walking Deacon as official marks that may be seen on uniforms in the coming months and will eventually be available on apparel and other merchandise as the rollout of the new branding continues. The walking Deacon, a mark derived from the design of the statue outside of Gate 1 at McCreary Plaza at BB&T Field, has been in limited use for a few years but is now an official mark approved for a broad range of uses.
As evidenced by some of the new fall uniforms and facility graphics, a slow rollout of the new and updated branding elements is already underway. Fans are encouraged to be on the lookout in the coming months as Wake Forest Athletics will continue to phase in the refreshed look over time, slowly incorporating the colors, logos and fonts into uniforms, signage, website and social media channels, marketing materials and in licensed merchandise.
"I really like how everything looks more consistent now," explained junior volleyball player Caroline Kuhn. "It's really cool to have a font that is unique to Wake Forest, and the new logo is fresh and updated but still classy and traditional. I also like the addition of the color grey and my teammates and I are excited about our new grey uniforms."
"We're excited about the new logos being represented around our facility and on our jerseys," said redshirt senior football player Justin Strnad. "We love the new branding and Wake Forest Athletics will shine in this new era Wake look!"
Each year Nike invites an average of four schools to participate in the GIG process during which the Nike team conducts a comprehensive brand audit and design assessment and provides recommendations based on their findings. Wake Forest Athletics engaged in the partnership with Nike in the fall of 2017 in an effort to enhance its branding and create a more consistent look across all of its teams. Consistency is a key element in branding, and with varying shades of gold and differing font and number styles, the overall look of Wake Forest jerseys, merchandise, collateral, signage, and other items had become rather inconsistent over the years.
"I was excited to learn after being appointed director of athletics that Wake Forest had engaged over the previous year with our long-time partners at Nike to evaluate our marks and colors," Wake Forest Director of Athletics John Currie said. "We have a strong brand identity and the additional marks and color update strengthen our story even more."
"Through a nearly two year process, and with the engagement of student-athletes, coaches, administration and alumni; Wake Forest and the Nike GIG Team partnered to help refresh and refine their athletic brand identity," explained Sean Butterly, art director for Nike GIG. "Always working with the ethos of "Respect the Past. Represent the Future," both sides collaborated to create a modern athletics brand that honors and supports the rich history, traditions and spirit of the Demon Deacons. The updated and cohesive identity elements, including logos, colors and typography, will drive consistency while remaining flexible to keep pace with the athletic department's evolving needs."When it comes to communicating the Wake Forest Athletics brand, color is quintessential. Over the years, the use of varying shades of gold led to inconsistency within uniforms, print materials, apparel and other merchandise, while a limited color palette consisting of only black and gold restricted teams to a minimal number of uniform color combinations. With the updated look, Wake Forest Athletics has standardized its gold, marrying the more traditional gold with a shade that is more practical to use in print production and will appear more consistent across a variety of fabric types and other mediums. The color palette has also been updated with the addition of dark steel grey, a color that reflects the hard-nosed toughness of Demon Deacon student-athletes and will be a fitting accent to the classic black and gold. Metallic gold remains in the color palette for limited use.
The new Wake Forest Athletics font and numeral set was designed to draw on elements of traditional Wake Forest styles fused with modern foundational forms and universal functionality. The strong block typography is an essential component of the Wake Forest Athletics heritage, as it speaks to the no-nonsense, hardworking nature of players, coaches and fans. In addition to the familiar Wake Forest wordmark, fans may also notice more frequent use of "Wake" on uniforms, apparel and other materials. Although very subtle, the "WF" mark also has been given a slight refresh to make it more functional. By making very small tweaks to the letters and spacing, the WF mark is now cleaner and easier to reproduce across a wide range of uniforms, apparel, applications and media. The introduction of two new complementary official marks is another exciting element of the updated branding. A top hat joins the popular walking Deacon as official marks that may be seen on uniforms in the coming months and will eventually be available on apparel and other merchandise as the rollout of the new branding continues. The walking Deacon, a mark derived from the design of the statue outside of Gate 1 at McCreary Plaza at BB&T Field, has been in limited use for a few years but is now an official mark approved for a broad range of uses.
As evidenced by some of the new fall uniforms and facility graphics, a slow rollout of the new and updated branding elements is already underway. Fans are encouraged to be on the lookout in the coming months as Wake Forest Athletics will continue to phase in the refreshed look over time, slowly incorporating the colors, logos and fonts into uniforms, signage, website and social media channels, marketing materials and in licensed merchandise. .jpg&height=340&type=webp)
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