UNC Announces New Branding Effort

If you've paid any attention at all last week you know UNC had been posting a series of videos ahead of the reveal of new updated logos and uniform styles. The new branding, which has been named "Our Blue" is in conjunction with Nike and covers slight changes to everything from uniforms to the official branding guide. Spoiler alert: There seems to be a lot of argyle involved.

The University of North Carolina has long been known for its distinct logos and unique shade of blue.

In partnership with Nike, UNC Athletics refreshed its marks and colors to create a consistent look to one of the most recognized brands in college sports.

UNC and Nike collaborated on the brand evolution program over 18 months, consulting with student-athletes, coaches, administrators and alumni to gather insights on key attributes of the institution.

"We are excited to once again partner with Nike, one of the most recognizable brands in the world, to help us refresh and refine our marks and logos," said University of North Carolina Athletics Director Bubba Cunningham. "The changes are subtle, but they celebrate our history and create consistency as we further seek to distinguish our brand.  This is our blue and we’re proud of it."  

As part of the updated identity, all 28 North Carolina varsity sports, beginning in fall 2015, will showcase consistent colors, logos, lettering and numerals.  The change will expand to all sports in the upcoming seasons.

To ensure consistency across all applications, North Carolina will introduce a refreshed primary logo, which will be adopted by all sports teams.  The interlocking NC logo dates from the 1800s and has been rebuilt to balance its size and scale.

In addition, the argyle pattern – which has been used primarily on the men’s basketball uniform since 1991 – will be adopted as a secondary identity for use by all teams.

The most prominent "change" which will draw the most attention is the football uniform where it appears UNC will return to the more traditional Carolina blue uniform which has been worn since the end of the 2013 season.

The helmet shown is not the official one that will be used with this uniform. UNC has a photo gallery here which covers additional football uniform combinations(white and black) as well as basketball, baseball and lacrosse.

UNC has also refreshed the marks and logo which can be found here. There are not any huge changes to the logo making this more of a streamlining than anything else. In case you are wondering, here is the full 50-page branding guide for Carolina athletics.

Overall, the refresh of UNC's brand doesn't appear to include any drastic changes to what we've been accustomed to seeing. That's probably a good thing. Carolina blue and school logos are iconic in their own right. There is little need to make wholesale changes only subtle ones. Again, traditional fans(i.e. the "get of my lawn" segment of the fan base like myself) will be very happy to see UNC in the traditional Carolina blue football uniform again.