What does our brand look like?

This is the important question that Eastern University has been asking for the past several years as we have tried to better understand how to visually communicate our brand promises. After much internal discussion and research, the University engaged the services of Stamats, Inc. and worked closely with branding authority, Dr. Robert Sevier. With Bob’s guidance, we were able to describe the education that Eastern University offers all of its diverse audiences, as follows.

Brand Promise (a valued promise that an organization makes to its most important external and internal audiences)
Eastern University combines academic excellence, spiritual formation, evangelism and social justice to inspire students to transform society and the world.

Brand Attributes (a series of words or phrases, implied in our brand promise, that serve as benefit segments and vivid descriptors)
   1. Engaging academics
   2. Focused on careers and callings
   3. Integration of Christian faith, reason and justice
   4. Passionate, diverse community
   5. Transformational
   6. Urban, suburban, global

With all of these concepts in mind, Eastern set out to design a symbol that would capture as much of this identity as possible. Dozens of graphic designs, created by our internal designers and with some outside assistance, were evaluated and discarded. Members of the University and external communities looked at various options, and feedback was gathered through interviews and focus groups. At the conclusion of this six month process, one design stood out, which is the one we have now adopted as our new logo.

As you will see, the new logo for Eastern University is both classic and contemporary, and is designed to work well across multiple marketing media. This brand concept is elegant and versatile, lending itself to one or two-color presentations in print, three-dimensional or Web formats.