USI logo

The logo of Università della Svizzera italiana includes the University’s acronym, USI, written inside a black circle.

Meaning

The USI logo is open to different interpretations, which will be discovered in the course of its application. A taste of its potential appears in its main element, a big U. U as in University but also and most of all as the abbreviation of the word You. USI wants to be a place of opportunities, where its members can uncover their potential through encounter and dialogue, with their voices, curiosity and drive. All of this can be achieved thanks to USI’s friendly size, welcoming culture (U as the shape of an embrace) and energy (U as the shape of a magnet that attracts and moves towards new challenges). A small world contained in three Campuses. USI IS-U: read back and forth, the logo of the Università della Svizzera italiana shows that “USI is you”. 

Letters

Next to the U the letters SI stand for Svizzera italiana. They are pushed forward and upwards in the position of an exponent to show a University with the mission, as public service, to boost the potential of the territory, while tracing the future through education, research and knowledge transfer. The reversed position of the letters SI represents a University where it is possible to discover new perspectives and to be surprised by unexpected horizons.

Style

The USI logotype, along with the graphic identity of the University in its entirety, follows the tradition of the Swiss graphic design school. A clean and reserved style that expresses the constant search for solid, essential, and no-frills quality, in the context of a pragmatic and substance-oriented organisation, well-rooted in its region while also reaching out to the world. The “Swiss Style” is in fact known also as “The International Typographic Style”.

A rediscovery

The use of the logo represents a rediscovery and an enhancement of the University’s graphic heritage. It was used in some publications dating back to the foundation of USI in 1996. Its rediscovery makes it the focal point of the new corporate visual identity: it shows on each product and it is the backbone of the new USI graphic design.

Continuity within evolution

The logo will be used together with the bars and thin lines system that characterised USI since its foundation. This system, renewed in some details, is based on the square, modular, and dynamic element, and it acts as a unit of measure ensuring a visual and hierarchical structure of the levels of the organisational chart and the information, in a flexible manner according to the context. The encounter between the circle (logo) and the square (system) - two pure forms – lays the ground for USI’s visual expression.