How to Make Many Out of One

UGA Innovation District Visual Identity

Client: University of Georgia Innovation District Task Force

Role: Visual Identity Designer

One of the biggest UGA initiatives over the next few years will be the development of its Innovation District. Encouraging collaboration among students, faculty, and industry partners, the District will make use of renovated spaces at the meeting point between the UGA campus and downtown Athens, Georgia – forming a literal bridge between university and community. UGA’s president, Jere Morehead, created a Task Force to explore name ideas and prepare the District’s launch. As the creative unit of the central marketing division at UGA, each of our three designers was tasked with proposing a visual identity to the Task Force. Below is my proposal.

“Collidoscope” was one name option that the District’s Task Force was exploring. The name suggests collaboration between academic and professional fields. I wanted to expand on that meaning in my concept. An actual kaleidoscope creates beautiful patterns by overlapping different shapes. To me, this could be a metaphor for the great and beautiful things the District could achieve when it brings people together from different fields and backgrounds. Looking to the Presbyterian Church (USA) logo as inspiration, I created a modular icon system from one of UGA’s official graphic elements, the shield. By repeating and rotating it, I created a symmetrical pattern that mimics a kaleidoscope’s shapes. By gathering or spreading out the shields from the center, I created shapes that could be used as icons that reflect aspects of the Innovation District.

The Task Force ultimately decided to go with a more literal name, the Innovation District. The website is here.