The University of Southampton is a top 10 research-intensive university, and one of the elite Russell Group of leading research universities. However, the general perception of Southampton did not reflect this. It was seen as good but unremarkable, equated by external audiences with non- Russell Group universities like Loughborough and Lancaster, rather than with its true comparators such as Warwick or Bristol. This, coupled with the fact that pressures on universities are increasing with the reliance on greater self-funding, the prospect of the deregulation of fees, and increased competition for international students, meant that Southampton identified a clear need to develop a more representative and engaging brand identity.

Consultation

The University's highly devolved nature, with over 20 academic schools and institutes, meant that extensive consultation was needed with staff, students and alumni, as well as external audiences such as business partners and employers. This widespread consultation identified a number of common themes throughout the University's activities, which were synthesised into a brand proposition.

Brand proposition

The basis of the brand proposition was to create a shared ethos, culture and values system that drew upon Southampton's reputation, the quality and character of its research portfolio, and the value of the knowledge transfer and qualifications it provides. The University's interdisciplinary approach, combined with its innovative, entrepreneurial research is now at the heart of the way that it projects itself.

Visual Identity

In design terms we recommended a radical move away from the familiar dolphin symbol, as we felt it was more redolent of post-1992 modern universities than its Russell Group peers. Our solution was a restrained, elegant logotype with a complementary typographic style to form the basis for the brand design. This was supported by a core palette of ocean-inspired colours and a photographic world illustrating the rich variety of the University's activities.

Brand architecture

Apart from the dolphin, a plethora of logos and sub-brands had developed over time across the University. To counter this, we developed a brand architecture system that balances the needs of a decentralised university with the right level of coherence and consistency across its academic and administrative activities.

www.southampton.ac.uk

The web provides a major opportunity to present Southampton as an internet-savvy, forward-thinking organisation. A simple yet highly effective matrix was developed to help the University determine which technologies to use to own their web presence and achieve their communications goals. We worked with the University to implement the vision and create the visual style for their online presence. The most high profile result is an information-based, highly visual set of websites that use the same navigation principles throughout the organization to ensure a consistent user journey experience. The main site, www.southampton.ac.uk features the University's groundbreaking research stories, and integrates web 2.0 features throughout, including Wikipedia, Flickr and YouTube feeds as well as social bookmarking features.

Team work

Throughout the branding project we worked closely with the marketing and communications team, including the internal design team. It was critical that they were able not only to understand the new brand, but also to become its champions. We undertook a period of mentoring and support, and worked jointly on developing applications that were eventually included in the brand guidelines. We also ran 'embedding the brand' workshops with key communicators in the academic schools, and tone-of-voice workshops with the University's writers.

Guidelines

Comprehensive brand guidelines specify the visual style across a range of materials including student recruitment brochures, information and promotional brochures, stationery and electronic templates, e-newsletters, corporate and school websites and campus signage.

Conclusion

A university's brand is about much more than a logo. It is about the way the institution represents itself in words, images, type and colour to a wide range of different audiences, all of which are critical to the university's success. The new Southampton brand draws on the authentic strengths, culture and ethos of the University defining and framing the messages it wants to send out about itself.

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