Our Brand

Passionate:
Ignited by our collective power to pursue greatness in everything we do.

Aspring:
Energetically reaching for greater possibilities within ourselves and others.

Creative:
Harnessing the power of great ideas to imagine great solutions.

Empowered:
Inspired and supported to be actively engaged in addressing society’s greatest needs.

Determined:
The relentless belief that greatness can and will make a better world.

See our Brand Pillars

How we write and speak about the University has a direct impact on how people perceive us. Use these guidelines to inform your word choices and writing style when crafting messages that represent or promote UAlbany.

Voice and Tone

Our voice expresses the key aspects of UAlbany’s collective character and personality through the words we say and how we say them. Together with the visual aspects of our brand identity, our brand voice helps an audience develop their impression of UAlbany, a feeling that influences how they perceive us beyond the facts of who we are.
 

Writing Great Copy

Be Active

Our creative, energetic voice requires sentence structure to match. Invigorate your writing about the University with action words (verbs) and avoid passive sentences.

• Do: We made a mistake.
• Don't: Mistakes were made.

Be Brief

Empowering voices get to the point. While it may be tempting to believe long, wordy sentences convey importance, a direct message is always more effective.

• Do: We give students tools to reach their full potential
• Don't: Through a comprehensive and multifaceted approach, we strive to provide students with the tools and opportunities necessary to achieve their fullest potential.

Be True

Authenticity and accuracy count. Avoid humility and hyperbole. Show pride without puffery.

• Do: Our students consistently turn their ambitions into real-world success.
• Don't: We’re the best university in the nation.

Be Specific

Vague statements don’t make an impact. Craft a single-minded message and write to your target audience.

• Do: Future engineers, policy makers and business leaders get their start here.
• Don't: Our programs fit every kind of learner.

Be Real

Use plain language. Strive for emotion, not just information. Favor straightforward over complex.

• Do: Here, you’ll learn across fields and grow in ways that matter.
• Don't: Our institution facilitates the acquisition of interdisciplinary knowledge to promote intellectual growth.

Advancing forward – the chevron as a visual metaphor

The large chevron graphic is a branding element designed to create energy and motion across all our marketing materials in every medium. It should primarily point to the right, sometimes up, but never to the left or down. This left to right (or upward) directional cue conveys forward momentum and action, that our sights are set on the future. It’s simple yet effective, visually striking and quickly identifiable as “from UAlbany.”  

The Minerva brand graphic is an element pulled from the University Minerva logo and University Seal that includes a full length/head-to-toe graphic of Minerva. The following guidelines must be followed when using the Minerva brand graphic:

1. She must always appear with an official Minerva Wordmark or Minerva Logo or the name “University at Albany” or “UAlbany” in Trajan Pro font. Other brand fonts may be approved for use with the Minerva graphic by OCM.
2. She must be lighter than her background and must always appear in a brand color. The preferred color combination is white Minerva on a purple background. She may be used in other materials without a brand color (e.g. wood, metal, glass, acrylic) with approval by OCM.
3. She must always face to the right. She cannot be flipped horizontally or vertically.
4. She can be used at full length or cropped in more closely to her torso or head/face. Make sure to crop her in a way that makes sense to viewers.