The Dal Brand

Brands, like people, have personalities. And as the first point of contact for our audiences, Dal’s brand identity will often be responsible for first impressions. Our brand identity is made up of all the little cues (from our logo to colours and font) that makes someone think, “hey, this feels like Dalhousie University.”

We’ve recently refreshed our brand to enhance the way we communicate our brand story through visuals and text.

Brand Guidelines

The brand guidelines document is a map to ensure consistency across all brand platforms. It is a reference tool for those familiar with the brand and it is an educational tool for those who are new to the brand.

Download a copy of the Brand Guidelines here (login required)

Dalhousie's Visual Identity 

Logo

Our logo is the most recognizable component of Dalhousie’s brand identity. Downloadable logos are available in full colour, one colour (black) and reverse (white) formats. Other options including informal logos, submarks, and social media favicons are also available on our CMC myDal site. (login required)

Sub-Brand Logos

For most external-facing communications and collateral, we advise using the Dalhousie logo (see above). However, groups within the Dal community will still require versions of our logo that clearly display their identity. To ensure consistency, please contact our Design Services team at design.services@dal.ca to obtain your applicable logo. 

Colours

After our logo, our colours are the most recognizable components of Dalhousie’s brand identity. Our primary colours respect Dalhousie’s black and gold tradition.

Dal’s colours are Wingtip Black (HEX#242424), Beak Gold (HEX #FFD400) and Cloud White (HEX#FFFFFF). For more detailed information on brand colours, see our complete brand guidelines (login required).

Font and Dalcon

The Font for the Dalhousie Brand is Public Sans. It is an open-source Google font that can be downloaded for free. Our brand guidelines (login required) offer detail on usage of font size and weight.

The Dalcon is a shape that is basis of our visual identity. It is a unique shape, rich with meaning and subtext, and its moniker is derived from a combination of the words Dalhousie and icon. Consider incorporating it in your designed materials. Our Design Services team can help. Contact them at design.services@dal.ca.

Expressing the Brand

With a refreshed brand, comes a new brand strategy including brand pillars (what sets us apart from other universities), personality attributes, positioning, and a distinct brand promise.

The way we talk about ourselves has evolved and our messaging must consistently come back to this strategy for reasons including consistency, reputation enhancement, and showcasing our points of differentiation we want to get across to our audiences.

We offer a suite of branded assets and templates, including:

• Writing for the brand guidelines
• Message book
• Editorial guidelines
• Tool and Templates (communications plans, project briefs, email signature generator)

Access all of these and more on our CMC myDal site (login required).

Report Outdated Brand Logos

We need your eagle eyes.

Our campuses cover a lot of space – physically and digitally – and though we’ve tried, we simply can’t possibly find every instance where our branding exists and must be updated.

If you find old versions of our logos anywhere (on the web or on campus) would you do us a favour and report back so we can make updates? Please email us at dalbrand@dal.ca.