Dear Carnegie Mellon Colleagues,

Tremendous strides have been made in increasing Carnegie Mellon's name recognition and reputation across the country and internationally. From the 1970s to the 1990s, Carnegie Mellon successfully made the leap from being perceived as a leading regional institution to becoming one of the nation's top-ranked national research universities with world-acclaimed centers of excellence.

Many outside our community view this transformation as one of the major success stories in higher education. In addition to the considerable institutional changes and investments that were made to accomplish this evolution, Carnegie Mellon has also enjoyed a surge in public recognition, particularly among key audience and industry segments.

Today we are competing against the world's most elite—and well-established—institutions of higher learning, almost all of whom have an extra century or two of higher education leadership, as well as a few extra billion dollars in endowment, to support their dominant positions in the public eye.

Now, as we strive to raise our profile among these market leaders, it is more important than ever to strengthen and consolidate our public image. A critical part of that image is our graphic identity—the way we present ourselves visually and in our promotional materials.

The way we present our name, our "look," our own "personality" as an organization—this is the first thing most people see when they step on our campus, read our correspondence, flip through our publications, see our merchandise and view our Web pages.

And it is often the one thing they remember.

Why the logo system was modified

The most important principles in generating and maintaining name recognition are consistency, frequency and repetition over a sustained period of time. Therefore, despite the various preferences of campus users, it was critical that the university and its units adopt a stronger, more consistent use of Carnegie Mellon's name and mark, and that we limit the number and type of variations being presented to our audiences.

In 1997, the vice presidents, deans, provost and I asked University Relations to develop a modified identity system to produce a unified look for all administrative departments and programs while providing greater consistency combined with some flexibility for academic and research operations.

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