Yellow? Really?

For a university so proud of its heritage, Santa Clara University’s new logo feels less like a tribute and more like a betrayal.

That mustard-yellow “sky” is very much not Santa Clara University’s color. Do you know who does have yellow? University of Southern California. Ironically, they took our acronym, and now we’re taking their colors. Or maybe, the vision was McDonalds, Shell, Red Bull or any red and yellow-logoed company—of which there are a lot.

Perhaps the biggest question with the yellow is: why? Why couldn’t the yellow have just been white?

The red and white colors have been around since the 1880s, according to the Santa Clara Magazine—a magazine published by University Marketing and Communications. One story describes how the color scheme became official after equating the colors to the sacred heart, and another claims that the red comes from the California state flag.

Student-athletes then, and now, wear red and white—these colors are an integral part of our identity as an educational institution. This new logo’s yellow retracts from our long-standing history and culture.

Worse, an average Canva user could make this logo. Artificial intelligence could make this logo. A middle schooler could make this logo.

Even the Times New Roman font is horrible; it’s traumatically academic, which is fitting but oh-so-boring. There’s a world of fonts out there, and yet the font most of us stare at on our Google Docs was chosen.

I will admit that the logo isn’t all bad. The year “1851” displayed on the bottom of the Mission Church represents the university’s status as the oldest higher-level educational institution in California, and the Mission Church represents the foundation of the campus. But those aspects were present in other logos as well, just not combined, so is it really an improvement?

While this rebranding aimed to modernize and expand the university’s presence in a national and international sphere, the university should have considered its heritage and future. We, as students and future alums, should be proud of the branding of our university.

Rebranding can be done right. Take Stanford, for instance. They managed to modernize their logo into a block S with a tree. While the tree is green, a color not in their main color scheme, the tree represents a part of their history.

Frankly, the logo is simply atrocious. So, it’s time to send the new logo into the electronic trash can.