The branding of Penn State athletics (if not the whole university) is probably going to go through a major overhaul following the Jerry Sandusky scandal (just named AP’s #1 sports story of the year – pennlive.com). The familiar “chipmunk” logo may be phased out.
Twitter user @CasaNoVApsu knows what he wants in a new brand identity for Penn State — a return of the block S in a keystone which he details in this Google doc.
The goal of this branding renewal is to develop a new visual identity for the Nittany Lions; an identity that is bold, timeless, and captures the four keystones of Penn State intercollegiate athletics: TRADITION, INTEGRITY, PRIDE and STRENGTH.
The logic is sound, but the logo just doesn’t do much for me, probably because I am not from Pennsylvania. Also, the whole “P” or “S” or “PS” or “PSU” problem for identifying Penn State is a factor. A strong effort though.
If the athletic logo is truly going to go away, I’d like to see the Nittany Lion Shrine be included. Maybe the Shrine face mark that Lion Ambassadors use:
Did you know that the stenciled Penn State logo was removed a few years ago by Guido D’Elia?
Ol’ Guido dumped the stencil and replaced it with a sans serif font. The “chipmunk” + sans serif font looked like somebody had put it together in MS Word. It was cheap looking, yet keeping in line with Guido’s “let’s make Penn State more generic visually” approach. Sadly, his audio approach was the same, only louder. If there is really going to be a full-scale remove everybody movement, the better include Guido.
