About the USF Sesquicentennial
Celebration Mark —“Legacy and Promise”

DESIGN PROCESS
The final mark was the culmination of semester-long design projects from three identity design classes in USF’s visual arts program. Thirty-five students presented designs in the fall of 2003. The final mark that was chosen integrated Diego Berjon’s structure, text and color with Mary Harburg-Petrich’s elegant phoenix and cross element. Berjon, in his senior year, was an exchange student to USF for one year from the Jesuit Universidad Iberoamericana, México City. Harburg-Petrich was a USF sophomore from Tacoma, Washington.

DESIGN RATIONALE
Two criteria were most important in the design of the celebration mark: 1. the mark must embody USF’s sesquicentennial theme of legacy and promise; and 2. the mark must be visually bold and elegantly celebratory.

The resulting mark offers a strong balance between its visual and informational elements, each sharing equal weight and importance. The words that clearly state USF is celebrating its sesquicentennial are just as important as the graphic elements that visually show its celebration in color and image.

LEGACY
In honoring USF’s tradition, the mark highlights the phoenix, which is not only the symbol of the university’s rebuilding from the ashes of the devastating 1906 earthquake and fire, but is also the symbol of the city of San Francisco itself, symbolically linking together the university with The City which have been inseparable since the school’s inception in the Gold Rush days. As a university symbol, the mythological bird is in the center of campus life—seen in a three-story tall bas-relief on the exterior of University Center—and on the school’s mace. At the visual heart of the celebration mark, the phoenix is intertwined with the USF cross, boldly identifying the school’s Catholic foundation.

PROMISE
In the same way that USF is presently celebrating an academic and cultural renaissance, the present and future of the university are symbolized by the soaring of the phoenix, lifted high on the page with its head looking optimistically upward toward the future. Behind the cross and phoenix is a swirl of colors, representing the school’s rich blend of diversity. As the old childhood church song says, “Red and yellow, black and white, they are precious in His sight…” so too USF’s background and promise are in embracing the diversity of the world’s people, depicted as a stained-glass window motif.

The informational elements, too, convey the dual message of legacy and promise. The initials “USF” reflect the school’s tradition with the use of the classically-drawn Bodoni type font, culled from the school’s logo, while the elongated, san-serif Univers UltraCondensed type font used in the words “150 Years” reflect a contemporary vision.

The design’s elongated rectangular shape conveys sophistication with a loftiness of purpose, building from its 1855 foundation, as seen by the date on the bottom of the rectangle, and rising through 150 years to the top soaring element topped by the present date, 2005, with the top design nodule pointing into the future.

The mark’s dominant colors are USF’s green and gold, which reflect USF’s tradition and reinforces the university’s brand.

Using the USF Sesquicentennial Celebration Mark

The Celebration Mark is an auxiliary identifier for the university and can be used throughout the Sesqicentennial year. It is not to replace the USF Logo on printed materials or web sites but can be used as an addition. The Publications Office has designed a special version of the USF Logo which should be used throughout the year on all publications and ads wherever the regular logo would appear. Detailed information on appropriate usage of both marks and their variants is available in USF150 Graphic Standards which can be downloaded in PDF format below:

USF 150 Graphic Standards [2.8mb]

Copies of the Celebration Marks may be obtained via the USF network in the Publications Office Server's "GuestPickupDropoff" box. See the folder labeled "USF150_Logos." For questions or more information contact Dale Johnston in the Publications Office at 422-2691.