
Originally Posted by
HoustonCajun
The FDL is on our official university (1898) seal (see below). It is a perfect symbol for the university and one that needs to be marketed. But, it has to be associated with Louisiana and Ragin Cajuns. UL has failed to market Louisiana and Ragin Cajuns together for some time and only now is starting to do that. It was mentioned that the FDL is in the center of the Quadrangle on campus (see below). I suggest that when we remove the Cox Building and put up a Square, in the middle of the Square put a smaller version of the FDL and fountain to further connect the main campus with the athletic campus.
Many of our recruits refer to us as UL Lafayette or Louisiana Lafayette. Surely, that does not come from anything athletic as athletically we are Louisiana. It comes from the academic information they receive which uses our official name and surely confuses them.
Here is a solution that should help to coordinate use of Louisiana both athletically and academically.
Change our academic logo to one similar to Texas and Wisconsin, just substitute Louisiana for Texas or Wisconsin with our FDL logo (see below). This serves two purposes:
1. It provides our legal name, but also refers to us as Louisiana, and
2. It ties the Louisiana name to both athletics and academics
Use of Louisiana alone is not prohibited by the law as "University of" is not included. If it works athletically, it should work academically. But, just to be safe, we still keep the official name underneath LOUISIANA.
So, when recruits see the new logo, or anyone for that matter, they see Louisiana, not Louisiana Lafayette. Now, we need to use this athletically as well, only replace "University of Louisiana ... at Lafayette" with "Ragin Cajuns". And, use this new logo athletically instead of the Louisiana Ragin Cajuns logo we now use (see below which doesn't even have the FDL). Now the university logos mirror each other. Can someone create an athletic logo to mirror the new academic one and paste here? UL's e-News now uses such a logo and it looks great (see below).
This should be the official university academic and athletic logos. I submitted this suggestion to Dr. S and to Dr. Maggard, but did not receive a response from either. Hopefully, it is being looked at and was used as the basis for the new e-News logo.
This is a perfect time for the university to revisit marketing and logos, both academically and athletically.