For the first time in over 50 years Dalhousie University has made serious changes to their logo and jerseys.
The rebrand consists of a new Tiger looking fiercer than ever in a lighter shade of gold — along with the soccer, basketball, hockey teams and women’s volleyball team getting a new set of jerseys.
It took 18 months for Dal’s department to set the new logo in stone. During the production, Dalhousie worked closely with The Northern Creative Agency and Dal alumnus Ben Bennett who has helped the Halifax Mooseheads, Moncton Wildcats and Edmonton Oilers change their look in the past. The Dalhousie Agriculture Rams, the teams representing the agricultural campus in Truro, also saw a change to their logo where their ram will sport the same gold as the Tiger.
The creative process
Dalhousie’s Executive Director of Sports and Recreation, Tim Maloney, credited Dal’s 2022 rebrand and wanting to align the Ram and Tiger as the reason for the historical change.
“It just felt like it was time to move to a new era,” Maloney said. “And modernize and clean up the Tiger.”
The new Tigers logo uses aspects of Dal’s past logos with a modern twist, specifically using the fierceness of the logo donned between 1978 to 1984. The new Rams logo also looks awfully similar to the logo that was adopted in 2012, after Nova Scotia Agricultural College merged with Dal, before the logo was changed in 2022.
Maloney feels “really good” about the final product and said during the process they tried to showcase Dal’s past while moving on to a future era.
“Those [ideas] provided the bumper pads to help guide the agency,” Maloney said. “But still give them some flexibility to deliver something new and unique and hopefully something we can all be proud of.”
During the process of making the logos Maloney said they took into consideration opinions of the student athletes and alumni, though he knows finding something that makes everyone happy is an impossible task. Once the department felt they had done their due diligence and received enough consultation, they met one final time where Maloney remembers them all feeling good about the result, ready to unveil the new logos.
After the logos were finished it was time for what Maloney called “the fun part” — the jerseys. Northern Creative Agency continued to work with the university along with their partner Under Armour. Just like with the logo, the department received the opinions of the coaches and student athletes to make sure they were on board with the changes.
It’s going to take time
Having to change the design of Dal’s 10 varsity sports teams is no easy feat and will take some time. Dalhousie athletics estimated the change to take three years until the past logos are fully phased out. The Dal Tiger and Dal Ram in places aside from the logos and jerseys will stay the same for a while but will eventually change to match the design of the new logos.
While the soccer teams are sporting their new jerseys, the hockey teams will have to wait until their new rink is finished to show off theirs.
At The Dal Bookstore and various locations that sell Dalhousie’s merchandise you will also be able to find commodities sporting the brand new logo.
As time goes on and the rebrand continues, Dalhousie will celebrate their new look on their various social media platforms, so keep an eye out for those new look uniforms.
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