What, you thought we were dead? Only mostly dead. Just a scratch. It’ll heal right up. Here, read this:
It’s been a weird few years for the Pac-12. USC and UCLA announced in 2022 that they were fucking off to the Big Ten1 which led in short order to the conference falling apart. After a series of variously-sensible2 moves, 10 schools in total found new homes for their sports teams while Oregon State and Washington State were left to fend for themselves.
This summer, the new and very-much-not-improved Pac-12 is relaunching with a new logo and some of the most astonishing corporate jargon I’ve ever read and I do rebrands for a living. While it might read like (shoot, might be) AI, this kind of tortured language is part of the core industry playbook, real bread and butter stuff. As penance for my participation in that industry, I’m here to translate it into words that normal people might actually use.
Let’s start with that poem/manifesto/cry for help on the right:
Tradition Meets Transformation
A name you’ll recognize applied to something you absolutely won’t
Where we came from. Where we are going. Those are not the same place.
This used to be a good conference
110 years does not make us cautious. It makes us certain.
No one knows if this is going to work
The equity of what came before is in here
We got a pile of cash in the breakup but oops we spent it all
The strokes are bolder. The edges are more aggressive.
The designer got told to “make it pop”
The previous version … was never designed for this moment. This mark was.
Which is why it’s worse than the old one
We’ll take this one beat by beat:
The Shield / No Boundary – Edgeless by design.
Make the logo bigger
The Cresting Wave / The Force – Unrepeatable. Never ending.
The Pacific Ocean is over here
The Electric A / Superhero Energy – Our “power” comes from within.
We’re afraid of negative space so we filled it in…
The Open Delta / The Vector – Transformation without boundary.
…but we couldn’t fill all of it.
The Upward A / The Way – Direction chosen. Commitment made.
Did you know As are pointy?
The Bold Strokes / The Standard – Aggressive. Modern. Unapologetic.
Please pay attention to us
The Topography / The Foundation – 110+ years standing. We are the West’s.
The Appalachians are older than the Rockies? Impossible
The Structure of Twelve / The Promise – Twelve marks to denote our eras. With room for more.
Updating trademarks is a lot of work
The Icon / Student-Athlete Centered – A superhero’s tool for those who define who we are, our student-athletes.
This is a logo for a college sports conference
In Conclusion
Good luck, 8.5 members of the Pac-12. You’re gonna need it.