The university’s widely recognized brand benefits each entity within Duke. Individual schools, programs, departments and initiatives should use some combination of the core elements of name, color, typography and visual mark to take advantage of Duke’s brand power and visibility. For this guide, we have developed a series of “co-branded” (or sub-branded) examples that communicate individuality while maximizing the value of Duke’s name and reputation.

Download Duke Branding Resources (9.7MB Zip file)

Communicator Toolkit

Find the resources and best-practices you need to successfully apply the Duke visual brand identity to your project.

Communicator Toolkit

Inside this resource:

Sub-Branding: School & Departmental Marks

School and Departmental marks are based on the Duke brand and follow this convention:

Design B: A diagram illustrating how to compose a horizontal sub-branded Duke entity mark with no graphic logo.

  • The mark should start with the Duke wordmark and a separator
  • Marks may be horizontal or vertical/stacked
  • All nouns should use Open Sans Bold and all prepositions and articles should use Open Sans Regular Italic
  • Departments may incorporate a symbol into their mark (see sub-branding examples 3 and 6)
  • On vertical/stacked marks, the width of the unit name may slightly exceed width of the Duke wordmark (see sub-branding example 5)

The range of sub-brand designs can be seen below:

Horizontal Branding Sheet (1MB PDF) Vertical Branding Sheet (1MB PDF)

Example of a one-line horizontal logo

Example of a two-line horizontal logo

Example of a horizontal logo with a graphic

Example of a vertical logo with contrasting colors

Example of a vertical logo

Example of a vertical logo with a graphic

Video Branding

For information on branding for video, visit Duke Video Strategy  in the Communicator’s Toolkit.

For information on branding for video on social media, visit A Guide to Duke’s Social Media Video Graphics Package in the Communicator’s Toolkit.

Dual Branding with Other Institutions & Partners

Duke works with many academic and industry partners and may have occasion for our brand to appear alongside others. In those cases, please contact the Office of Trademark and Licensing for guidance on how best to proceed.

Co-Branding: Placement & Consistency

When the Duke wordmark is used with other Duke entity logos and marks in the same design (such as on an event flyer), please follow these guidelines:

  • The Duke wordmark should always appear on the same plane as the other mark(s)
  • The Duke wordmark may not be locked up with any other mark(s)
  • The Duke wordmark must follow official size, color, and placement standards
  • The Duke wordmark should never be larger than the other mark(s)