• US$710

• 285 designs

• 45 designers

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Logo Design Brief

The United States Academic Decathlon (www.usad.org) is looking to develop a new logo to reflect its larger rebranding effort under its new, shorter name: Academic Decathlon. This logo should be youthful, smart, and whimsical - just like our participants!

The re-energized Academic Decathlon, which this logo should reflect, will be more about what education is becoming - and what it should become - than about what it's been in the past. It will be about collaborative learning, critical thinking, and not just competition but community-building: a celebration of learning for students of all backgrounds.

The Academic Decathlon is also developing a new website to complement our new logo and to help communicate our innovative, more inclusive approach to education.

You may have seen the Academic Decathlon in films such as High School Musical and the Day After Tomorrow, but it's extremely different from how Hollywood portrays it. Academic Decathletes aren't just already college-bound students who buzz in to answer trivia questions and make straight As in their spare time. Academic Decathlon teams are diverse: three students on each team are required to have C averages, three to have B averages, and three to have A averages. They work together to learn a diverse curriculum, from music and science to economics and art, that changes focus each year. And they participate not just in multiple choice tests but in performance events such as speech, interview, and writing.

You can expect opportunities for Academic Decathletes to collaborate within and between teams to increase as the program continues to innovate and expand in the years ahead.

Target Market(s)

Both participants (schools and students ages 13-18) and potential sponsors.

Industry/Entity Type

Education

Logo Text

Academic Decathlon (and Acadec - see below)

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Logo styles of interest

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Look and feel

Each slider illustrates characteristics of the customer's brand and the style your logo design should communicate.

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Requirements

Must have

• We'd like the logo to be usable in four versions:
  
  1. The icon and the full name Academic Decathlon.
  2. The icon and the website name, Acadec.
  3. The icon by itself.
  4. The full name Academic Decathlon by itself.
  
  Update: our different states often brand their own versions of our logo. It would be helpful to see how the logo would look if tailored for such use - say, by the California Academic Decathlon, or by the Texas Academic Decathlon.
  
  We have discussed a base color of Yale blue (http://www.yale.edu/) but are open to other suggestions.
  
  An example logo that has proven effective is that of an organization with which we have an evolving relationship, the World Scholar's Cup (www.scholarscup.org). Note the youthful, whimsical icon ("the alpaca of the rising sun") and the more traditional font (Adobe Garamond Pro) of the text in the logo. Our logo is likely to need to be a bit more traditional overall, but a dash of whimsy would be beneficial.

Nice to have

• In the past, we have used an iconic "torch" in our logo, and are open to its inclusion in some fashion. Other items that might be symbolized in the logo or in the graphical icon: (1) Teams have 9 members, 3 each in 3 categories, (2) There are 10 events, as in an athletic Decathlon, (3) the program is becoming global.
  
  Room for a tagline would be nice, though that could come later.

Should not have

• Logo should not be too juvenile or multi-colored, and it should not use the acronym USAD or the full name United States Academic Decathlon (again, as we are moving to just Academic Decathlon). It should not look like the current logo, which you can see at the existing website (www.usad.org). (A new website is forthcoming, with a less all-over-the-place color scheme that will, ideally, fit the logo.)