Blue Devils Spirit Branding

Branding, Illustration

Project Overview

Until recently, attempts at branding have been haphazard and left to the whims of individual coaches and uniform vendors. The devil illustration hadn’t been updated in 40 years and the inverted trident was borrowed from the Mariners. It was decided that a completely new design would be needed.

My Contributions

As the in-house graphic designer, I took on the entire rebrand process. In collaboration with various on-campus stakeholders, we designed a new Blue Devil spirit brand. I also designed the mascot costume and character.

Since 1963, the Blue Devil, trident and related marks have represented Merced College's sports teams, school pride, and the spirit of its tight on-campus community.

In 2021 the Office of External Relations began an in-house rebranding process in order to create a cohesive athletics brand for our small college. A monogram was designed as well. Some stakeholders did not want to let go of the old trident, but we were able to at least customize it. After a year of development, the rebrand was launched in the fall of 2022. The mascot was ultimately named Blaze based on a social media campaign.

Merced College

Athletics Rebrand

2022