We are UTS

Authentic, creative, energetic, open and entrepreneurial. If UTS were a person, that’s how you might describe them. And, from Monday 1 May, the way the university presents itself to its stakeholders will increasingly reflect these personality traits.

May marks the start of the roll out of the university’s visual identity refresh. Key to the new look and feel are a set of characteristics that describe who we are, what we stand for and how we interact with each other and the broader community.

“Our staff and students are all potential advocates and the authentic voices of UTS,” explains Director of the Marketing and Communication Unit (MCU) John Chalmers. “We all have a role to play in helping UTS be a world-leading university of technology, and to recruit the right staff, students and partners to help us grow.”

The visual identity refresh comes after extensive research into what the university community and its current stakeholders think UTS stands for.

“We all have a unique perspective of UTS and could give countless reasons of why it’s important to us,” says Chalmers.

“We explored that diversity of thought and experience to help us define and articulate what UTS stands for – we’re authentic, creative, energetic, open and entrepreneurial.

“Many workshops and stakeholder interviews were conducted and we established a Brand Advisory Council that included two Deputy Vice-Chancellors, four Deans and representatives from Alumni and Advancement, UTS International and UTS:INSEARCH.”

The move to a more consistent, unified way of representing UTS, which is being overseen by MCU, includes the roll out of a new visual identity and tone of voice guidelines. “It brings us the opportunity to more easily talk about the exciting work that is happening across the university, and better profile UTS as part of everything we do,” says Chalmers.

Over the next six months, staff can expect to find new email signatures, and business card and stationery templates on StaffConnect. Within the next year, you’ll see a new website, advertising and other external communication templates come together too.

Moving forward, all UTS materials will use a combination of red, blue, black, white and monochrome colours.

“The inspiration behind our new colour palette is technology and data,” explains Chalmers. “The blue is inspired by the colour of MS-DOS coding screens and the red by website heat maps.”

The logo is also breaking out of its box, literally. The updated logo maintains the anchor form at the top, inspired by the City of Sydney coat of arms and maritime location; the DNA double helix in the centre is symbolic of innovation, technology and collaboration; and the wave forms at the base reflect our Sydney Harbour location,” explains Chalmers.

Arguably, the most exciting part, though, is the new UTS Visualiser. Its development included input from academics in the faculties of Engineering and Information Technology, and Design, Architecture and Building. Says Chalmers, “It’s a data visualisation tool we have built to uniquely tell our stories and enable a vibrant, energetic, flexible and ever-evolving visual identity.

“We input unique data about our faculties, our students or research centres into the UTS Visualiser and it outputs superb graphics which are supported by our photography, graphics and typography.

“It’s unlike anything other universities are doing, and represents that junction where creativity meets technology. That is really at the heart of UTS and it’s something we can all get behind.”

For the latest information about UTS’s brand refresh rollout, visit uts.ac/2nQdEXo.