Athletic Marks

The university has established a series of marks and colors for the intercollegiate athletic program. The family of designs was developed to build a greater awareness of and a more appealing identity for the university's athletic programs. The marks also communicate the relationship between the team name "Cyclones" and the mascot, "Cy the Cardinal." When creating communications that have an athletic message, these marks should be used. These marks are used primarily by the Intercollegiate Athletics program. Because this family of marks was developed to promote the athletic program, academic units should not use these marks on their materials unless they are developing communications that relate to athletics. An example would be an invitation to a football game day tent barbecue, sponsored by a university college or department.

The official colors in the Cyclone family of marks are Cyclone Cardinal Red and Cyclone Gold. Navy blue is only an accent color and should be used sparingly. See Athletic Color Palette for additional information on official colors.

Use Primary Mark A on materials/merchandise/apparel that are distributed only in Iowa.

Use Primary Mark B on materials/merchandise/apparel that will be seen outside Iowa.

The secondary marks: "Punching," "Emblem," and "ISU" were created to be supporting marks that should appear on materials/merchandise/apparel in partnership with another athletic mark. Because there are several ISU's across the nation, that mark should be used with one of the other marks that has "Iowa State" in it. "Punching" should not appear alone because there is no team or university name included the design. "Emblem" works well with either "Punching" or "ISU."

Secondary Mark Punching

Secondary Mark Emblem

Secondary Mark ISU

Word Marks were also created to be supporting marks. Word Mark 2 works well in combination on materials/merchandise/apparel with Word Mark 1,3 or 4.

Word Mark 1

Word Mark 2

Word Mark 3

Word Mark 4

These images are trademarked and licensed to vendors who produce clothing and merchandise for retail sales. No alterations to these designs are allowed. The trademark licensing office oversees the licensing program and the distribution of athletic marks artwork.