Pitt Athletics Rebrand: Moving Forward by Looking Back
Published on June 3, 2019, at 7:15 a.m.
by Mickey Kennedy.
Just a couple of months ago, Pitt Athletics announced a rebrand for all of its teams, including a new font, logo and jerseys.
The University of Pittsburgh is a historical school flowing with tradition, and this rebrand did not shy away from that fact. Pitt’s tagline for the new look is “respecting the past, representing the future,” a line that stands true with the style of the rebrand and has people interested so far.
Pitt’s new look comes with many messages about the meaning behind the colors and logos. Pitt Athletics honed in on this revamped look as a way to unite the school and its student-athletes’ past, present and future.
Pitt hosted a massive reveal event in front of its iconic cathedral, showing off every sports team’s new look from football to wrestling. The event even included the launch of the newest Nike store on campus where fans can purchase the new gear.
Colors and logos
The color scheme and primary logo are an homage to Pitt’s “golden era” of football. The bright blue and gold that Pitt teams will wear next year pay respect to former Pitt head football coach Johnny Majors, who used these colors to stand out from rival Notre Dame in 1973.
The “Pitt script” logo has a similar history with Coach Majors wanting a logo that made the team more unique. But by 1996, a new athletic director stepped in and started to change the brand and the “Pitt script” went with it. From 1996-2016 Pitt entered what fans of the school refer to as the “Block Era of Darkness” until the script came back across all sports throughout 2016 and 2017. The only update to the script logo is the new color scheme.
The Pitt Panther logo also received a much-needed facelift with a newer and more modern style. The logo is said to be inspired by a panther head on a fountain in front of Pitt’s Cathedral of Learning with details from other panther-related statues around campus.
Fonts and wordmarks
Similar to the panther logo, Pitt also designed two new typefaces for the school that was inspired by the buildings on campus. The Cathedral Font takes the curvature from the Gothic elements built into campus buildings, particularly the school’s Cathedral. The font has two different versions with the alternative typeface having a more consistent curvature.
Wordmarks are a grouping of letters or words that symbolize the organization behind a slogan. Pitt announced it will use stylized versions of “Hail to Pitt” or “H2P” using its new fonts as wordmarks.
Uniform design
Another Gothic-inspired element of Pitt’s new uniforms will come from a unique stripe. The Cathedral Stripe takes the same curvature that is used in the font and turns it into a repeating stripe design that will be implemented on jerseys across all of the teams.
Pitt’s revamped look will fully take off next fall but it already seems like a branding success.
“It evokes our legends while anticipating future greatness. There is power in the Pitt brand and these colors and marks will maximize that strength for Panthers past, present and future.” —Heather Lyke, Pitt Athletic Director