ACU has revamped its athletics logo. After 15 years, the university has replaced the old Willie and brought in a more consistent brand for the school.
“This has been a two year process,” said Ron Hadfield, assistant vice president for university communication and editor and graphic designer for ACU Today magazine.
“We were asked by athletics director Jared Mosley to begin a process of looking at a redesign on the universities athletics logo,” he said. “That has not been done in 15 years. He (Mosley) wanted to do some updating and we did as well.”
“The current Wildcat we have is very detailed,” Mosley said. “It’s almost impossible to reproduce that on apparel and embroidery and it look good.”
Hadfield said the logo redesign was not a result of the move to NCAA Division I in the fall of 2013 or the Southland Conference invitation since this process started before there was a D-I plan in place.
“We wanted to put a new face on ACU athletics and build some new energy for the fans, players and coaches,” Hadfield said.
Hadfield and his marketing team in the Office of Creative Services decided to hire Rickabaugh Graphics to design the new Wildcat. Rickabaugh is located in Ohio and is one of the leading design firms for collegiate athletics programs in the country. They have worked with schools like Baylor, Ohio State, Texas, Vanderbilt and the University of Wisconsin.
“Eric Rickabaugh did an outstanding job working with us,” Mosley said. “It was nice to be able to lean on them and not have to figure this out on our own.”
ACU began meeting with Rickabaugh in 2011. The company did market research and held several meetings with Hadfield and his team to talk about what the school envisioned for a logo.
“We had focus groups of more than 100 people to look at the preliminary designs that they did,” Hadfield said. “The groups consisted of student-athletes, coaches, faculty, staff, alumni, donors and friends of the athletics programs.”
The official primary colors of the logo are ACU Purple and white, the same as the old logo. The official secondary colors include: ACU Gray and ACU Silver although making the secondary color gray or silver is optional. Black can be used as the support color, as a background for the logos or as a trim color on apparel.
Hadfield said they have already started working with the coaches and their uniform representatives so that they have jerseys for next season. Athletes will not be sporting their new jerseys until next fall. The Campus Store is now selling ACU shirts with the new logo printed on them.
The Moody Coliseum floor is scheduled to be refurbished this summer. The floor will be sanded down to bare wood and then repainted. The new Wildcat logo will be painted at midcourt.
