School colors

Source: Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia.
This article is about colors used as part of school branding. For colors as an award for sporting achievement, see sporting colours.

The UCLA marching band dressed in the school's "True Blue" and gold colors in 2010

School colors, also known as university colors or college colors, are the colors chosen by a school, academy, college, university or institute as part of its brand identity, used on building signage, web pages, branded apparel, and the uniforms of sports teams. They can promote connection to the school, known as "school spirit," and help differentiate it from other institutions.[1]

Background

Princeton University's store, featuring the school's orange and black colors

The tradition of school colors appears to have started in England in the 1830s. The

Eton School in 1837,[3] and Durham University adopted palatinate purple for its MA hood some time before that degree was first awarded in 1838.[4]

Many US colleges adopted school colors between 1890 and 1910. These were generally chosen to be distinctive, something that grew harder as more colors and color combinations were taken, although many Presbyterian colleges chose to imitate Princeton University's black and orange.[5] Some American schools, in a display of patriotism, adopted the national colors of "red, white, or blue."[6]

The most popular colors among US colleges ranked in the 2012 Forbes Top 50 or in the 2012–13 NCAA basketball or cross-country rankings were white, blue, red, black, and gold. These same five colors were the most popular five colors among colleges in each of the three rankings individually.[7]

Sports

See also: Sporting colours
Nippon Sport Science University Rugby Football Club players wearing their light and dark blue colors

The use of colors to identify university sports teams dates back at least to the second

Cambridge Blue is only one of twelve colors in the supporting palette for the university, not one of their six core colors.[8] The University of Nottingham uses green and gold for its sports, but the rest of the university uses blue as its brand color.[9][10] Roger Williams University changed its athletics colors in 2018 to match the university colors, in order to "foster a strong, unified visual identity for RWU Athletics that is more cohesive with the overall University", stating that "this combination will be powerful in strengthening RWU's brand identity and awareness".[11]

Most competitive teams keep two sets of uniforms, with one emphasizing the primary color and the other emphasizing the secondary color. In some sports, such as American football, the primary color is emphasized on home uniforms, while uniforms for other sports, notably basketball, use the secondary or a neutral color at home, most commonly white. This is done to avoid confusing the two schools' colors.[citation needed]

In addition, various groups that generate support for athletic teams, including

awards presented for achievement in a subject or a sport.[citation needed
]

Nicknames

The university color can sometimes become a nickname for the sports program. For example, the Palatinate (Durham) and the African Violet (Loughborough) in the UK,[12][13] and the Harvard Crimson and Cornell Big Red in the US.[14]

Academic dress

Main article:
Academic Dress
Edge Hill University's academic colors of heliotrope (purple), gold, and green seen on the hood of honorary graduate Sue Smith

School colors are also used in the academic dress of many institutions. The first school color adopted by a university for its academic dress was

doctoral robes will also be in the colors of the university which granted the degree, departing from the Academic Costume Code color of black.[17]

Academic scarves

Main article: Academic scarf

Many British, Irish and Commonwealth universities and some American universities have an

Oxford, Cambridge, Durham, and Lancaster, each of whose college has its own colors and scarf. Other non-collegiate universities such as Glasgow and Newcastle have scarf colors for each faculty.[18]

Notable school colors

A 1907 postcard representing Columbia University, featuring a woman dressed in Columbia blue

See also

References

  1. ISBN 9781613500699
    .
  2. ^ a b "Oxbridge Blue. How to win the varsity match". The Field. April 7, 2015. Retrieved June 11, 2019.
  3. ^ John Sargeaunt (1898). Annals of Westminster School. Methuen & Company. p. 238.
  4. ^ a b C. E. Whiting (1932). The University of Durham 1832-1932'. Sheldon Press. p. 141.
  5. ISBN 978-1-4214-2883-3
    .
  6. ^ "History of Penn Colors, University of Pennsylvania University Archives". www.archives.upenn.edu. Archived from the original on June 5, 2016. Retrieved May 11, 2016.
  7. ^ Haley Omasta; Stacey Hills (2015). "Official College and University Colors: Student Perception vs. Performance" (PDF). Proceedings of the National Conference on Undergraduate Research (NCUR).
  8. ^ "Colour palette". University of Cambridge. February 28, 2014. Retrieved December 14, 2022.
  9. ^ "University of Nottingham Sport Brand". University of Nottingham. Retrieved December 14, 2022.
  10. ^ "Colour". University of Nottingham. Retrieved December 14, 2022.
  11. ^ Edward Fitzpatrick (July 25, 2019). "RWU Releases New Hawks Logo". UWIRE Text. Gale Academic OneFile: 1.
  12. ^ Ben King (September 27, 2023). "University Rugby: League champions Loughborough off the mark with battling win over Nottingham". Talking Rugby Union.
  13. ^ "Women's National League 2023-24 - Fixtures Released!". British Universities and Colleges Sport. July 21, 2023. Retrieved October 15, 2023.
  14. ^ Dennis J. Zheng (February 4, 2010). "Big Red Contains Crimson". The Harvard Crimson.
  15. doi:10.4148/2475-7799.1022
    .
  16. ^ "Academic Regalia". American Council on Education. Retrieved December 8, 2022.
  17. doi:10.4148/2475-7799.1075
    .
  18. ^ "A brief history of academic scarves". Study.EU. Retrieved August 3, 2017.
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