Edna Grant
Staff Writer
On one of the first real days of spring, Idaho State University’s campus is warm, green, bright and inviting. Students and faculty walk slowly, taking in the sunshine and warm breeze instead of walking, huddled and brisk, toward their destinations.
Taking an opportunity that many have waited for, Stuart Summers leaves a window cracked in his crisp and organized Administration Building office. Summers, ISU’s vice president of marketing and communications, is hard at work. It’s been a busy year.
On President Kevin Satterlee’s first day at ISU, he approached Summers with a task. “We need to a better a job of telling ISU’s story,” Satterlee said.
Since then, Summers has been hard at work. There are different facets to telling a school’s story, and for ISU, rebranding is a big step in doing just that.
In the 1920s, when ISU was known as the Idaho Technical Institute, the school adopted the Bengal Tiger as its mascot. Since then, ISU has seen a number of changes.
The university’s name has changed more than twice, and the Bengal head has seen a series of different styles. The most recent ISU Bengal was introduced to the school in 1997.
“Our traditional students, the ones that come here right out of high school, this Bengal head is older than them,” Summers said.
This coming August, the school’s team will be unveiling a new Bengal head for the first time in 20 years.
Tigers and Bengals are the second most common school mascot, after Bulldogs.
“We need to make ISU Bengals and our brand recognizable,” Summers said. “What does it mean to be an ISU Bengal?”
Along with a new Bengal head, the school will be rolling out a new official logo with a new font and focus on the color orange.
“Orange is the color of signs,” Summers said. “It says, ‘Hey, look at me,’” Summers said.
The color will continue to be a driving force in ISU’s new brand.
The new brand implementation will be a slow process. The new logo and merchandise will be ready for the public in August, but Summers is adamant that it will be rolled out gradually to avoid a financial burden.
“We’re not going to tell faculty to throw away their old business cards,” he said. “When they run out of business cards, they will just order from the new template.”
This is the strategy that will be used for branding throughout the university. There is already a budget for replacing branding items throughout campus and the Pocatello community. They will be switched out for the new brand when the life-span of these items is up.
Last week, ISU announced higher tuition for the 2019-2020 academic year. Speculation arose throughout the community if the cost increase was related to the branding efforts.
“Absolutely not,” said Summers in a deadpan, insisting that replaceable items have always had a place in ISU’s standing budget. “Tuition increases are for student resources such as Student Health and Counseling services.”
Rebranding is part of an ISU unifying effort. In the past, ISU campuses in Idaho Falls, Meridian, and Twin Falls have been disjointed.
“We want our students, when they visit other campuses, to feel comfortable and at home,” Summers said. “We are one university and one Bengal family.”
There will be an updated style guide with all of the new branding materials such as colors, fonts and styles. These style guides will not only be sent out across all of ISU’s campuses, but all campuses will be included in training and instruction for using and implementing the new brand.
Faculty and students alike will have access to software with all of the new templates for graphics and posters alike.
“Students put on so many events,” Summers said.
Clubs and other student organizations will not be forgotten in training sessions for the new brand.
August 12 will be the day where Summers and his team reveal the new ISU brand. Incoming freshman at New Student Orientation will be given t-shirts with the new brand, and the bookstore will be selling new merchandise as well.
“We want all of our students and faculty and alumni to, when they get here, [think] that it feels like home,” Summers said.
