Temple University Owl Logo Rebrand
In fall of 2021, Temple University enlisted the help of graphic designer and Temple alum, Joe Bosack to create an updated owl mascot logo for the university. Reflecting on the process that went into creating the Temple ‘T’ main logo, it was decided that Tyler School of Art and Architecture’s Design Workshop class would aid in the creation of this new mark as they did years before.
My class worked with Joe Bosack to develop ideas and present them to our clients multiple times throughout the semester. During this process, we also created our own logo marks based on the creative brief we were given and the feedback we received on the main logo. The class broke into smaller groups to focus on each idea as well as provide each other with feedback for our own logo mark. My group consisted of Phillip Lee, Sana Kewalramani, and myself and we were art directed by Joe Bosak and our professor, Bryan Satalino. It was an overall collaborative experience in class as we helped each other on our logos as well as with the final design for the client.
“Boldness, Tenacity, and Pride”
The Creative Brief: Refresh the Temple Owl Mark
Our goal was to create a new, responsive logo for Temple’s Strategic Marketing & Communications and Temple Athletics that will unify students, alumni, and staff. The current logo has too many lockups which lessens the brand’s value. The new logo would be a scalable, responsive head only and full body icon with a modern, simplistic design.
We established that the tone of the logo should reflect a feeling of boldness, tenacity, and pride. Along with this, the mark needed to look fierce, majestic, and progressive while being enjoyed by students, alumni, professors, and Temple Athletics.
Identifying Problems:
To start off this process, our class met with the Strategic Marketing & Communications department to discuss the creative brief along with our client’s goals and pain points. Analyzing competing logos like Penn State University and Saint Joseph University’s mascots allowed us to identify what is not working in Temple’s owl logo. We visited the school store to look at how the logo acts on merchandise of various sizes to see what to avoid and what to focus on when creating the new mark.
We concluded that the outdated 90’s design style of the owl logo inhibited its success in the current market. The logo acts more as an illustration because of how detailed the mark is. It uses five colors, harsh outlines, and has a very aggressive expression. Due to the amount of detail it has, the mark does not translate well on small collateral like hats and other merchandise at the school store. The employees there shared that it is not favored by the target audience when they make purchases at the school store either.
Design Process: Initial Sketches and Ideas
We started the design process by sketching out our initial logos while keeping the idea of boldness, tenacity, and pride in mind. The sketches referenced an actual owl’s proportions with focus on features that would help identify them in graphic form like their beak, claws, and ear tufts. We brought our sketches into class for our first critiques and then vectorized them after receiving feedback. To push our ideas and collaborate with peers, we swapped logo concepts with one another and began editing each other’s work. We then brought elements back into our own ideas from this challenge.
Meeting Stella the Owl
Our class got the opportunity to meet with our school’s owl, Stella, to further understand the bird’s proportions, behaviors, and movements to help us correct our designs based on our observations.
Learning About the Temple ‘T’
Along with meeting Stella, we also had the privilege of meeting the professionals and professors who created Temple’s iconic ‘T’ logo. They talked to us about their process creating the logo with students decades before and the path they took to reach the final mark. Through this, we recognized the need to connect the official logo to the Temple ‘T’.
Presentations and Focus Group Testing
Through the semester Joe Bosak presented each stage of the new Athletic’s logo to the client, Temple’s Strategic Marketing & Communications department and Temple University Athletics. We were allowed to sit in on the presentations and gather feedback to further the designs of both the school’s new logo as well as our own. We shared notes with one another to find common themes as to what the clients were looking for in a final design.
In the focus group tests, Joe presented the logo concepts to groups of current students, alumni, and staff. Our class sat in on these and wrote down the feedback from each group to gather data on the target audience’s wants, needs, and pain points. These sessions were very informative to the process of creating the logo. They also solidified the need to incorporate a diamond into the mark as well. The shape has a strong association with Temple because of Russell Conwell’s ‘Acres of Diamonds’ speech given at the school. It is ingrained into the university’s identity and most in the focus group tests felt it was important to include in the new logo.
Final Design Process
Frequently Joe would bring in the official logo his team were spending their time on for our class’s feedback and ideas to incorporate. We would get into our groups and make edits to each version to present again to the client for a last round of revisions. By the end of December, the final design was chosen for the university.
To incorporate the diamond shape, I started by making it the outline of the owl’s head. I then rounded the edges and simplified the mark while keeping it contained in the diamond shape. Alongside the head, I also designed a fully body logo to maintain consistency between both. The logo utilized Temple’s cherry and white colors, and worked with both colors as either the background or owl’s color. By the end of the semester I created an owl logo that adhered to the goals of the creative brief and connected to Temple’s Brand identity.
Final Logo Design
I reached my final design by incorporating the feedback gotten from the presentations and focus group testing while focusing on the initial goals to simplify the logo down. I went through a series of revisions to reach a final design that reflected feelings of boldness, tenacity, and pride.
Implementation of The Owl Mark: Collateral
I created a series of collateral to see the logo in realistic use. This consisted of merchandise that would be found in the school store for students, alumni, and staff to buy. Along with this, I also experimented with seeing the logo in various places around campus to show it incorporated into the Temple Community.
Institution: Temple University, Tyler School of Art and Architecture
Focus: Branding
Instructor: Bryan Satalino and Joe Bosack
Team: Hanna Lipski, Phillip Lee, and Sana Kewalramani
Photo Credit: Joseph V. Labolito
