So when she joined IUSA this year she and her co-chief Paul Yoon decided that it was necessary to rebrand IUSA in an effort to make the organization’s appearance more professional and suited to their goals.
To do this, Siewenie and Yoon brought Blair Carlisle, a senior majoring in graphic design, onto IUSA staff as their graphic designer. The marketing co-chiefs communicated their goals to her during the summer and she redesigned the logos.
“We really discussed what the mission of IUSA is and how we can emphasize that mission in the logo and make it recognizable to students inside and outside of IU,” Carlisle said.
Siewenie said one particular point of the rebranding was to answer the question, “what is IUSA?” She said that because the organization’s name doesn’t include the words “student government”, students might not know IUSA’s function.
To help students understand the organization, the team created the slogan, “Your student government,” which appears on some versions of the new logo.
“Being the student body government, that shouldn’t be a question that ever comes up because we’re representing the students,” Siewenie said. “Students should know who we are. Students should know that we’re their voice and we’re working towards making their lives better.”
As a new member, Siewenie said her different perspective allowed her to ask for a break from IUSA’s traditional image.
Carlisle said rebranding allows any organization to stay current.
“It’s important to change a brand identity every couple years to keep people interested in your organization or at least give off a sense that you’re constantly innovating, constantly modernizing your image to fit the current customer or student,” Carlisle said. “It can also grab attention of people who might not have noticed it before and may be more aesthetically drawn to a different logo or brand identity.”
The new logo still shows the Sample Gates like the old logo, but features a new font and different colors. The addition of new colors to the logo beyond IUSA’s traditional crimson and cream were intended to add visual interest to grab students’ attention, Carlisle said.
“With keeping the icon of the Sample Gates, we wanted to make the letters for IUSA really big and bold to show that they’re a large presence on campus,” Carlisle said. “They want to really grab students’ attention and make sure they know that they have a voice in IU’s administration.”
Overall, the rebranding is part of a larger movement within IUSA to improve awareness and understanding of the organization.
“We hope with our new logo and the visibility we hope to gain with our marketing proposal, we’ll just create a better image for IUSA and be able to find ourselves as more of a centralized location for where students come when they have things to say,” Siewenie said.
