The members of the University of Delaware community, including our outside partners, are stewards and storytellers of this great University. Our task is to articulate and herald its unique identity to the world. The University of Delaware Brand Style Guide is designed to help all those working at and with UD to be the best ambassadors of its image, reputation and story throughout the world.
University of Delaware brand style guide
With roots reaching back to 1743, the University of Delaware is now a community of more than 16,000 undergraduates, 3,500 graduate students, 4,000 faculty and staff and 145,000 living alumni, who excel in diverse fields and hail from all corners of the world. When we look and sound like a single great institution and are recognized by our audiences as one, the breadth, depth and impact of everything we do is even more impressive.
This style guide details the University of Delaware’s thematic and visual brand DNA. Included here are key messages and a graphic identity system rooted in extensive research and developed, vetted and embraced by our community. This cohesive and uniform guide to the UD brand offers a powerful and efficient way for the University to communicate with key audiences. The guide ensures that—as UD’s fight song says—“Delaware will shine.”
As I said when the University embarked on its Path to Prominence, we’re setting out on a new path designed to engage closely with the critical issues of our day, to increase the global impact of the University and to raise its prominence in the world. Our destination remains constant: to fulfill the mission of the University and to be recognized around the world as one of the great public institutions of higher education.
The development of the University of Delaware Brand Style Guide is another important marker on our Path to Prominence. Your use of these guidelines will help us work together to advance our great University.
Patrick T. Harker
President, University of Delaware
August 1, 2010
Foundation of the University of Delaware Brand
Mission
The University of Delaware exists to cultivate learning, develop knowledge and foster the free exchange of ideas. State-assisted yet privately governed, the University has a strong tradition of distinguished scholarship, research, teaching and service that is grounded in a commitment to increasing and disseminating scientific, humanistic and social knowledge for the benefit of the larger society. Founded in 1743 and chartered by the state in 1833, the University of Delaware today is a land-grant, sea-grant and space-grant university.
The University of Delaware is a major research university with extensive graduate programs that is also dedicated to outstanding undergraduate and professional education. University faculty are committed to the intellectual, cultural and ethical development of students as citizens, scholars and professionals. University graduates are prepared to contribute to a global society that requires leaders with creativity, integrity and a dedication to service.
The University of Delaware promotes an environment in which all people are inspired to learn, and encourages intellectual curiosity, critical thinking, free inquiry and respect for the views and values of an increasingly diverse population.
An institution engaged in addressing the critical needs of the state, nation and global community, the University of Delaware carries out its mission with the support of alumni around the globe and in partnership with public, private and nonprofit institutions in Delaware and beyond.
Core Values
Five principles form UD’s commitments to the world and serve as the foundation for our strategic goals:
• Delaware First: Serving as the flagship of higher education in Delaware—both by ensuring that every Delawarean has access to a top-quality education and by applying the strengths and resources of the University to benefit the greater Delaware community.
• Diversity: Offering a robust educational environment in which all people are welcome and feel welcome—one that supports critical thinking, free inquiry and respect for diverse views and values.
• Partnership: Creating innovative partnerships for economic and community development; building knowledge and promoting ideas that serve the critical needs of the state, the nation and the world.
• Engagement: Engaging students, faculty, staff and alumni in the most compelling social, cultural, artistic and scientific challenges of our age.
• Impact: Making a difference in the world and assuring that UD’s innovation, excitement and accomplishments are publicly known throughout Delaware and academia, and across the nation and the world.
Strategic Milestones
Six milestones guide UD on its Path to Prominence:
• A Diverse and Stimulating Undergraduate Academic Environment
• A Premier Research and Graduate University
• Excellence in Professional Education
• The Initiative for the Planet
• The Global Initiative
• An Engaged University
Distinguishing Characteristics
• Active educational experiences based on real-world learning and research and frequent student-faculty interaction (problem-based learning)
• Central location within the Mid-Atlantic region
• Connections to government, to the corporate world and to international learning and research opportunities
• Commitment to an educational experience that is sensitive to issues facing our global society
• Outstanding faculty with valuable connections to business, industry and government
• Traditional campus with a relatively small enrollment for a public institution
Telling the Brand Story
Brand Personality
UD is daring, ambitious, energetic, humble, proud, innovative, honest, entrepreneurial, egalitarian, independent, global, environmental, civic, scholarly, historical, beautiful, classic and friendly.
Key Messages
The following are chapters in the UD brand story. While other institutions may have similar individual attributes, it is the way these attributes connect with and enhance one another that sets the University apart. These chapters or pillars comprise the unique UD brand package:
• Idea Leadership
Mix human ingenuity, abundant resources and a location in a state known as an incubator of global, entrepreneurial R&D, and you have idea leadership. UD’s scholarship shapes and challenges prevailing thought, our research redefines what’s possible and our entrepreneurial tradition exploits those possibilities. We connect with the future and the past, with tradition, with the world, with the arts, with the technologies of tomorrow and with a vast community of creative minds. At UD, discovery, invention and innovation matter. We’re thinking big.
• Discovery Learning
UD is known for its problem-based, hands-on learning in every college, in every major. In the National Survey of Student Engagement, the University outperforms every one of its peers in real-world, authentic scholarship, enriching what and how students learn. At UD, students are exposed to diversity of thought, diversity of people and diversity of culture, and learning happens everywhere—inside the classroom and out of it. Plus, a relatively small enrollment means engaged students connect with interested, accessible faculty for tailored mentorship that makes a difference.
• Smart Money
Kiplinger’s Personal Finance calls UD a top 25 best-value university, and Smart Money magazine ranks us 16th in the nation for graduates’ earning power versus tuition—higher than every single Ivy League school. But the University isn’t just a good investment for students alone. Every state dollar invested in UD yields a nearly tenfold return for Delaware, and every year, the UD community spends $2.9 billion in the First State. This annual expenditure supports more than 26,000 jobs—5 percent of all the jobs in Delaware.
• East Coast Classic
UD is in the middle of it all: New York, Philadelphia, Baltimore, D.C., the Atlantic Ocean and the Delaware and Chesapeake bays. The campus, considered one of the country’s most beautiful, features open, green space and traditional Georgian architecture—16 campus buildings make the National Register of Historic Places. Plus, there’s the vibrant town and the involved community. For the quintessential college experience—with easy access to everything the East Coast has to offer—there’s simply no other option like it.
• Citizen University
Global, green, engaged. Our job isn’t finished until our ideas, our expertise and our people make a real and significant difference in the world. And in every discipline, they’re doing just that. The University of Delaware is working on the most compelling social, civic, artistic and scientific challenges of our age. There’s an energy here—a positive restlessness. We’re eager to have an impact, close to home and around the globe—to apply our ideas and effort to improving the human condition and the world in which we live.
• Talent Magnet
From the inventor of vehicle-to-grid technology to top political strategists to National Players of the Year, talent attracts talent. The University of Delaware boasts some of the world’s most dynamic people—people who dare to their capabilities and then go even higher. Among our faculty, students and alumni are Guggenheim and Fulbright fellows, Nobel laureates, Pulitzer Prize winners, Rhodes and Goldwater scholars and members of the National Academies. UD alumni, faculty, staff and students connect for life to an ever deeper and wider talent network—because talent goes where talent already is.