The Sun Belt, Georgia Southern Unveil School Specific Conference Logo
5/30/2013 6:31:13 PM | General
NEW ORLEANS – As part of its new logo and brand development, the Sun Belt Conference unveiled a school specific conference logo for Georgia Southern, using the school's primary colors of blue and white.
The Sun Belt Conference unveiled its new logo and brand, which came after a nearly yearlong examination of the impact, sustainability and core values associated with the conference, at its spring meetings in Destin, Fla., last week.
As part of the program, the logo was also designed in all of the Sun Belt's members' official school colors for use on uniforms, fields and playing courts. Georgia Southern's original design contained a majority of blue and gold, but after gaining feedback from the University and Eagle fans, the Sun Belt and SME, Inc., contracted by the league to lead the rebranding campaign, redesigned the mark so that it contained GSU's traditional colors of blue and white.
"Together We Rise" is the new mantra for the conference, and it is the foundation and essence of the contemporary logo that the league will begin using on July 1, 2013 - replacing the existing conference logo that has been in place since 1997.
Understanding market place competition and the need to standout from its competition, the Sun Belt Conference began examining and defining its brand identity and the need for a complimentary logo to embody that brand. The overarching goal of the process was to create a bold and fresh new identity built upon a foundation of unity that corresponds to the Sun Belt Conference's future success and also honors the foundation built over the past 37 years.
The Sun Belt Conference logo is a dynamic and exciting new expression of the brand, which upholds and forwards all the promise that the Sun Belt name suggests in both opportunity and aspiration.
The logo itself highlights the sun as a powerful and iconic expression for the conference that suggests unity, strength, promise and ambition. The individual parts of the icon combine to create a unified whole and represent strength in togetherness; a foundational value at the core of the Sun Belt Conference brand. The band of blue across the diameter of the icon symbolizes the "Sun Belt" region, while dually creating the feeling of a sun breaking the horizon at the dawn of a new day.
SME is a renowned strategic brand development firm which was responsible for the rebranding of the Pac-12 Conference and Big Sky Conference among other prominent collegiate and professional sports properties.
About the Sun Belt Conference
Thirty-seven years after its founding, the Sun Belt Conference finds itself at the pinnacle of collegiate athletics as a member of the 10-league alliance of the Bowl Championship Series and soon to be College Football Playoff.
There is no question that the Sun Belt Conference is a league on the rise in football. After all, the conference finished with its most non-conference wins in league history in 2012 and also sent a record four teams to bowl games. The conference also finished the 2012 season with its best ever average computer ranking – finishing ahead of Conference USA and the Mountain West.
The Sun Belt had two wins over top-25 ranked opponents and Louisiana-Lafayette and Arkansas State won their respective bowl games. All four Sun Belt Conference institutions that went to bowl games in 2012 return for the 2013 season.
The 2012-13 men's basketball season saw the league put together its best non-conference RPI in four years while sending two teams to the NCAA Men's Basketball Championship. Notably, the Sun Belt's men's and women's basketball teams combined for a record tying seven postseason appearances this past season.
In other sports, the league is known for placing multiple teams in the NCAA baseball and softball tournaments year-after-year. Baseball and softball teams from the Sun Belt Conference are usually easy to spot in the national top 25 rankings.
The Sun Belt Conference will contest the 2013 football season with eight members – Arkansas State, Georgia State, Louisiana-Lafayette, Louisiana-Monroe, South Alabama, Texas State, Troy and Western Kentucky University. UALR and UT Arlington compete as non-football members.
Appalachian State and Georgia Southern will join the league as all sports members in 2014, while Idaho and New Mexico State will join as football only members.
Georgia Southern Athletics provides up-to-date information on all its sports through its official website, GSEagles.com, through social media channels facebook.com/GSAthletics and twitter.com/GSAthletics, and its new "Eagles GATA" mobile app for Android and iOS.
