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Indiana University
IU Brand
Indiana University Brand

You are part of the IU brand

Every member of the IU community is the face of the IU brand—students, alumni, employees, and more. But those of us in marketing and communications play a unique role in shaping our brand experience

It’s our job to introduce people to a university they’ll love, give current university members the experience they dreamed of, and make former attendees part of the IU family for life.

A female student smiles into the distance while standing in front of the University Library at IUPUI, she wears a red shirt with a white trident centered between the straps of her backpack.

Bigger than branding. Bigger than a logo. We are an ecosystem.

To put it simply, our brand is our distinct identity.

Traditionally, we tend to think of our brand as being objective. The trident or our brand colors might come to mind first. And while visual branding elements are part of it, they’re far from the whole picture. The IU brand is the entirety of our ecosystem—every touchpoint, every relationship, every interaction. It exists through our people, our impact, and our exchanges. It includes our strengths and our weaknesses.

More importantly, we don’t get to unilaterally define our brand. The IU brand lives in the mind of our constituents. Who we are is who our constituents believe we are, compared to our competition. And those perceptions are formed through countless experiences across a variety of platforms and channels. Together, we call these platforms and channels, along with the tools for building and using them, our brand ecosystem.

A limestone trident adorns the side of the Bill Garrett Fieldhouse during a summer day on the Indiana University Bloomington campus.

Bringing our ideal brand to life

In order for our brand to reach its potential, we have to successfully eliminate any distance between the IU we aspire to be and the IU our audience believes us to be.

There are four key tenets to ensuring our constituents love IU for life:

  • Deliver exceptional, enriching experiences to those we interact with
  • Be authentic and remain true to our values
  • Communicate our benefits, and show our audience how IU can enhance their lives
  • Minimize negative experiences and manage the ones we can’t avoid

Using this brand website

To help you bring our ideal brand to life, this website serves as an online information hub, offering supporting documentation for the brand ecosystem, along with tools and resources for how to best leverage the IU brand.

Our brand website allows you to:

  • Quickly access, learn about, and operationalize our new brand strategy
  • Discover and leverage brand expression including how to implement our visual identity and deliver compelling content
  • Use code and pattern libraries
  • Download tools and templates

Using this site can help you make informed decisions about how to deliver powerful, positive, and consistent brand experiences across touchpoints.

Always optimizing

In an ongoing effort to make this hub as valuable as possible, we will continue to expand upon and evolve the resources available within this site.

Explore key elements of our brand ecosystem

  • Brand expression

    Explore our philosophy of brand expression, visual language guide, design tools, and content resources.

  • Brand strategy

    Learn about IU’s brand strategy, including strategic priorities, brand truths, campus DVPs, and more.

  • Insights

    Find information about research, data, and insights, along with how to use them, lives here.

  • Campaigns

    Discover campaign planning resources, paid media information, and more about how to approach Integrated Marketing Communications (IMC).