Branding
Universidad de Los Andes. ULA - Heraldic brand design.
"ULA" are the acronyms that are used to refer to the University of Los Andes, this house of studies of more than 200 years of history, is the second oldest in Venezuela and imparts to Mérida the character of the University City.
PROBLEM
The ULA had a heraldic shield that had undergone various changes during its history. The most recent version was not ready to be used in digital media and presented problems of drawing and construction.
CHALLENGE
Redesign the shield for its correct reproduction in diverse media and sizes, conserving the essence of the original shield and its historical content. In addition, it had to operate within the brand architecture of the university, with 13 faculties, two nuclei, and numerous dependencies.
SOLUTION
The proposal was to create a heraldic brand: a graphic brand that preserves the heraldic values but is designed under the parameters of graphics performance of the commercial brands. The new shield of the ULA is completely responsive and preserves the tradition of the institution framed within the communicational challenges of the current era.
The project consisted of redesigning the shield used by the University of Los Andes for the last 10 years. The objective was to achieve a synthesis of it that would allow it to be graphically integrated into the new digital and printed communication media. For this, the last version designed in 1994 was started. The graphic refinement process started from a schematic drawing of the shield with the idea of restructuring and relocating its elements in relation to its structure and general composition. Starting from the principles of heraldic design, the new proposal was born by placing the ovals in the center of a root rectangle of 2 and from the center defining the perspective or vanishing point of the location and drawing of the other elements that make up the shield. A distribution carefully thought out to achieve and maintain a visual balance and aesthetic treatment that would give coherence to an individual and total reading of the shield.
