Proposed Reser Stadium

To briefly explain the overall concept for OSU it includes all sports. Football and basketball and then baseball are the major sports that most allow us to showcase the university. With the football field I think it is a good idea to checker the endzones to highlight our colors and return more pageantry to gameday. The bright and bold ‘OS’ in the middle of the field then serves to make those colors stand out while confidently saying Oregon State.

With basketball, I think we can afford to use Benny as the showpiece. Both the OS and Benny are well associated with the Oregon State Beavers. However, with Benny you don’t have to have the somewhat silly ‘Beavers’ script below. He would be a secondary logo and that would still hold true since basketball is the second largest money producer for the university. Many universities use a somewhat different design for their basketball courts and with us it would be no different. This logo also has tradition with basketball.

The Giant Killer uniform redesign uses black, orange and white all in substantial amounts but does not diminish the importance of black. It does let our first school color of orange stand out for the center of the field which will also go with the majority of the fans who wear orange. In basketball, we similarly would wear all 3 colors a healthy amount but the proposed design brings orange out more like was the case during our greatness in the 80s. Benny’s eyebrow was slightly exaggerated in my drawing so I toned it down just a bit.

The overall look of both the basketball and football venues are fun and current. We are telling recruits that Oregon State is a great place to play at right now and that we are relevant. Both designs up the ante and incorporate bolder elements that instill belief in recruits that Oregon St. plans to win and have fun doing it.

Merchandise wise the OS would sell in good amounts as it is best for hats and stating “Oregon State.” However, those with the classic Benny could wear their old gear or buy the updated versions. In all we have two supporting logos and that is better than just one because there is too much chance for it to get stale or not be all inclusive of university needs. By retiring the current angy beaver but incorporating a classic we cut down and sharpen our brand. The only other option for a secondary logo is a new Nike design but then you have to remember that we will still have past designs floating around.

One other option is to keep using the Angry Beaver for a few games a year for a couple years and see if there is enough interest to keep doing that. The Giant Killers would probably use matte helmets with the OS logo on only one side and the other either blank or with an orange number. But for a few games a year we could wear the glossy black Angry Beaver helmets and it could still fit within the overall concept until we are sure we are ready to retire him completely from active duty.

There is alot to think about and OSU does need to get serious about these issues soon. The competition is stiff and it would be nice to know that De Carolis has plans to get Oregon State to the top of the Pac-12. With Pac-12 TV coverage being as good as it will be we want to stand out in a way that will make us an attractive destination for top recruits and assure OSU has nationally ranked sports programs.