On Tuesday, Indiana State University unveiled a new look for their Sycamores athletics identity.
In the spring of 2018, Indiana State partnered with Old Hat Creative, based in Oklahoma City, to develop a new look for the school’s athletics identity.
“It was such an honor to be selected to design a new family of logos for an athletic program with such a storied tradition,” said Zac Logsdon, CEO and founder of Old Hat. “We did a lot of research among fans, alumni and donors to determine what was most important to them about the brand so we could carry that over into the new set of marks. We wanted to honor the past while at the same time giving Indiana State a modern identity that will represent the Sycamores for years to come.”
Why Change?
Indiana State felt that their current look had become outdated and that modern look was needed to help with national perception, fan engagement and recruiting. The school also stated that their logo created problems for reproduction (uniforms, merchandise, graphics, etc.). The dominance of white and the detail in the state outline caused problems with embroidery and small print. Another problem with their logo was that the location of the star wasn’t accurately representing the location of the university in Terre Haute, Ind. Lastly, the curved script “Sycamore” was difficult to utilize separate from the primary logo.
The New Look
Indiana State and Old Hat surveyed alumni, fans and other university personnel to understand the direction the new look should go in. Through their research, they found a few problems with their current logo (mentioned above) and also found that the state outline and using “Sycamores” in the primary logo were what fans wanted to remain in the new primary identity. Gray was added to the school’s color scheme as a complementary color to help solve many of the design and usage issues the previous logo had.
The logo with the curved script “Sycamores” that has been in place since 1988 will remain as a vintage mark. The interlocking “I-S” mark will continue to be utilized for baseball only. The “Indiana State” script will continue to be used on the Sycamore Track & Field uniforms only in tribute to the legacy of longtime program coordinator John McNichols.
The new logos will debut on March 5-8 at Arch Madness (Missouri Valley Conference basketball tournament) in St. Louis on the players’ shooting shirts.
Here are some of the unused concept logos Old Hat created:
