Nestled in the foothills of the Blue Ridge Mountains in the Shenandoah Valley, Southern Virginia University was re-established in 1996 as a private college aligned with the teachings and values of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints.

Southern Virginia's Main Hall, this beautiful nineteenth-century Queen Anne style building that overlooks the town of Buena Vista, is the most iconic image associated with the campus and serves as the foundation of the university's young brand.

Despite Main Hall's striking red exterior, Southern Virginia's primary brand color changed from crimson to green after a student vote in 2004.

Southern Virginia has experienced unprecedented enrollment growth over the last five years, making it one of the fastest-growing private residential colleges in the country. Not only were the logos dated, but green the brand was visually confusing and disconnected from the energy and trajectory of this startup University and its unique mission.

To better capture this energy and improve the visual consistency with the most iconic brand image, the University "came home" to its original primary color – crimson. We updated the academic logos to be cleaner, more modern, and optimized for social media. The new tower icon is an evolution of the previous tower while incorporating the laurels from the academic seal.

Southern Virginia's mascot has been the Knights since its renewal in 1996, but there had never been an official knight logo. Our in-house design team used the color change as an opportunity to also release a new knight logo for Athletics.

We took cues from some of the strongest collegiate brands and logos, including Clemson, Michigan State, Texas, and Washington State to create a refined, iconic, and timeless knight logo.

We developed a system of sub-brands for individual sports, as well as a new proprietary typeface called Knight Sans to create visual unity across athletic teams.