Client: Princeton University
The Coast to Coast College Tour program is a collaborative undergraduate admissions initiative among Princeton University, Northwestern University, Vanderbilt University, Dartmouth College and University of California-Berkeley. The admissions officers from these highly selective schools join forces to visit certain areas of the nation together. Traveling together not only helps them share costs, but makes it easier and more efficient for prospective students and school guidance counselors to plan their calendars since on a given date, they can hear presentations from five schools instead of only one.
My first task was to create a logo for this new brand. Sometimes I get asked where my ideas come from so I thought I would share my first quick sketch, done on a piece of scrap paper:
You can see that I immediately zeroed in on the double “C’s” for Coast. I played around with how they could relate to one another, either fitting into one another, like spoons facing the same direction or back-to-back in a more playful and abstract fashion. I thought briefly about a U.S. map, trying to determine if the logo needed a direct image of the nation to explain itself. You can also see that I began to play with the letters intersecting one another, creating a transparent new shape at the points of intersection.
Ultimately, I found that I could represent the sense of 2 coasts by using 2 “coastal” colors, pale blue and pale green. These colors were also good choices because I did not want to use colors that competed with or favored any of the schools’ official colors. None of the schools use these 2 shades. Transparency did make it in to the final rendering of the “C’s.”
I decided that it was not necessary to depict a map of the U.S. What I did determine was key to the brand was the concept of “college admissions.” Thus, I incorporated the mortar board which is immediately recognizable to this audience.
With the logo established, I went on to design a letterhead, envelope, flyers, postcards and a pocket folder (below) for the Coast to Coast program. The logo was also incorporated into a Coast to Coast web site.
As a postscript, I have noticed that sometimes (in e-mails) the Coast to Coast program uses the shorthand “C2C,” so the use of the double “C’s” has proven to be memorable.
