A revised and evolved Butler brand was unveiled on Aug. 17, with the tagline “Setting the Standard for Bold.” Throughout the 2026-27 academic year, further changes will take place, including the new colors, fonts and taglines, culminating in a full website refresh in 2027.
Throughout the past 18 months, prospective and active Butler students, alumni and faculty were engaged to see what parts of Butler branding could be refreshed. As well, around 30 members of the campus community — including students — were formed into a Brand Activation Committee to further develop ideas and opinions.
Jonathan Purvis, the university’s vice president of advancement and marketing, works on a combination of alumni fundraising and growing reputation, awareness and enrollment efforts. He explained that the brand refresh aimed to extend its representation across all sectors of Butler, including the arts, athletics, graduate programs, the community and general campus life.
Purvis understands that the phrase “brand refresh” is not initially clear to everyone.
“When people hear brand, they understandably often think about, ‘Are we getting a new logo?’” Purvis said. “That is all the visual identity, which is often the easiest thing to see about a brand. The core of that will look very familiar.”
The main changes to visual identity are subtle, introducing a few new colors into the palette, alongside updating fonts and slogans. The changes will appear mainly in marketing materials, using the new assets to unify aspects of the university.
“Butler is much bigger than [its undergraduate program],” Purvis said. “[We had to] think about our graduate programs, our community outreach, about athletics, the arts and [everything else]. The brand was then built around ‘how we extend it to really represent what Butler is across all of these different vehicles.’”
Some of the most visible changes to Butler branding appear in campus signage, like on the side of Dugan Hall, where the slogan used to say “Changing what it means to be a university,” and now reads “Raise the Standard.”
Butler dubbed Aug. 26, the first day of class, “Brand Celebration Day,” and hosted activity stations and giveaways on the mall between Dugan Hall and Clowes Hall.
Rachel Stotts is a marketing strategist for Butler and helped organize the celebration day to spread the new brand across campus.
“[It is] a fun — get your free stuff, get your free hat, get your free pendant — sort of thing to share the love of what we’ve been working on for the last 18 months,” Stotts said.
The pop-up event included signage that showcased brand items, such as the new colors in the palette — using the event to make the brand clearer and more approachable for students.
“We want to make sure we talk about the university and the brand reflects the university in a way that is authentic to the actual lived experience of students,” Purvis said.
Senior health sciences major Anna Gogol was a part of the Brand Activation Committee and attended Brand Celebration Day. She likes the new vocabulary that has been introduced in the refresh.
“I am super excited about some of the language that we’re using,” Gogol said. “I definitely think ‘Better as a pack’ is something that makes us more of a community. We have our own way at Butler, and I think that’s unique from other schools.”
To read more about Butler’s evolved brand and what “Setting the Standard for Bold” means, visit the Butler Brand Hub.