Cincinnati Christian University wanted an identity makeover to reflect some of the changes that they wanted to implement to bring a better education to its students. One of the major problems with the previous identity was that it did not communicate anything about the school apart from its name; with the new logo, the goal was to communicate the university's location, that it is an educational institution, and its desire to be involved in the community surrounding it.

They emphasized a desire to reflect the "city on a hill" imagery, referencing Matthew 5:14.

The process taken during sketching was addressing the different goals in different ways: exploring representation of iconic campus buildings, the cityscape, and a wordmark.

Ultimately, the skyline approach offered the largest ability to communicate the three major ideas. The crest was desired because of the relationship to academia and prestige and the monoweight approach would allow for small variations over time without a complete overhaul.

Based on the ways the university wanted to use the logo, three formats were developed to accomodate those needs. The Left-alligned text next to the crest was developed as the primary form, especially for envelopes, letterhead, and other paper elements where the logo and name would function as an introduction. The center-alligned version was designed for use on elements like event posters where the logo needed to be included without taking the most prominent position, often to be included at the bottom after the event information. The final iteration was to serve as an accent when the name of the school was not necessary, such as student events. The "1924" is present to communicate the year the university was established, largely because its social media outlets were unabled to acquire "CCU" and were forced to become "CCU1924."

 

The colors were intended to be bold colors, purple and charcoal being the primary colors with accents of a golden yellow, tan (where appropriate), and a lighter gray.