Illini Sports Blog

Big Ten Conference Reveals New Logo and Honors Football History with Division Names and Trophies

Park Ridge, Ill. -- The Big Ten Conference today made several announcements that complete a series of decisions prompted by the upcoming addition of the University of Nebraska - Lincoln as the conference's 12th member school. The conference revealed a new logo to be used for all sports beginning with the 2011-12 academic year and also unveiled names for its two football divisions and a list of names for 18 trophies to honor coaches, teams and student-athletes starting with the 2011 football season.

"When we announced football division alignments in September, other associated decisions had not yet been made. We wanted to take some time to listen, carefully consider, and make choices that would best honor our history and traditions, reflect our core values and characteristics, and tell our story," said Big Ten Commissioner James E. Delany. "We involved many thoughtful, dedicated professionals and we listened to many ideas from our member schools, alumni and fans."

The new Big Ten logo was developed by Michael Bierut and Michael Gericke of the international design firm Pentagram.

"The new Big Ten logo was developed to symbolize the conference's future, as well as its rich heritage, strong tradition of competition, academic leadership, and passionate alumni," said Gericke. "Its contemporary collegiate lettering includes an embedded numeral "10" in the word "BIG," which allows fans to see "BIG" and "10" in a single word. Memorable and distinctive, the new logo evolved from the previous logo's use of negative space and is built on the conference's iconic name, without reference to the number of member institutions."

bigten.org

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