New brand initiative says UI is 'Illinois,' not UIUC or U of I
May 22—CHAMPAIGN — Forget "UIUC" or "U of I"; the University of Illinois plans to be known only as "Illinois."
That's just one part of a new set of brand guidelines made up of thousands of details that seem minor, but each impacts how the public views the UI.
Creating those guidelines was a years-long project for communications staff, said Robin Kaler, associate chancellor for strategic communications and marketing.
"'UIUC' was a relatively new term. It came up when the internet came out, and they were looking for names for each university in the system," Kaler said.
"UIUC" is four characters to "Illinois'" eight.
"The decision was made by a well-meaning person to try to save people time, but it ended up creating this extra nickname," Kaler said.
The abbreviation itself wasn't a problem, but adding it to the list of possible terms that could refer to the university meant more ways to confuse anyone trying to learn about the UI.
It's also a bit too close to "UIC," leading a significant enough number of prospective students to apply to Chicago when they wanted Urbana-Champaign or vice versa.
Kaler made a decision early in her career as associate chancellor to switch UI's webpages to over , but it wasn't until Chancellor Robert Jones began his tenure that staff was given the chance to make a more concerted effort to expand the project.
"One of the first things he said to me was, 'What's up with your website?'" Kaler recalls.
In reading up on the university before stepping in as chancellor, Jones noticed how inconsistent departmental pages were from each other and from the main landing page.
He also wanted to see the UI's marketing and image as a whole be more strategic and unified beyond the online presence.
"It's not just us saying to do this, we have the chancellor who says it's important," Kaler said. "And we did it within our current budget; we didn't ask for more funding, and that's why it took so long."
Communications staff saved money by cutting back on big advertising like billboards, focusing on getting "our house in order," Kaler said.
While she couldn't put an exact date on when everything started, Kaler knows it was pre-pandemic and that she's excited for this project to be coming to a close.
One of her first steps was interviewing around 100 various deans and other university leaders in the course of a month to learn what they wanted and needed for successful marketing.
Years of research and work meant answering thousands of questions as big as "What should we be calling the university?" and as small as "What should we call the 'about' page for each department?"
Staff even made a pronunciation guide for names and places both on and off campus — looking at you, Monticello (Mon-teh-SELL-o).
Some of this work is already visible on campus, like building signs that all now match and promotional banners hung near commencement, but the official final rollout is scheduled for the fall.
In the meantime, communications staff are receiving training (which will earn them Illinois Brand Expert credentials) and have an incredibly detailed webpage to reference for everything from design ideas for flyers to how to keep student organizations from violating trademarks.
"We've done all this work to say 'This is who we are. These are the pillars on which we build everything.' But if we don't deliver on that promise, then that was all for nothing, and we don't want that to be the case," Kaler said. "People say universities need to tell their stories better, and we want to be able to do that."
