Rebranding the foremost french university in social sciences, at the intersection of legacy and innovation

In 2024, Graphéine helped Université Paris 1 Panthéon-Sorbonne update its graphic guidelines. The design brief required a review of the logotype’s responsiveness. Université Paris 1 Panthéon-Sorbonne has a unique heritage, combining a classical, conservative past with an innovative, revolutionary spirit. Two characteristics that make up the university’s history.

An initial audit of the existing identity revealed a severe cluttering of the university brand. Several versions of the wordmark and emblem were being used simultaneously, weakening the Panthéon-Sorbonne brand even internally. To optimize the size of the wordmark, we redrew a customised version of the lettering. The wordmark’s original academic and institutional style was retained. Each letter and all the ligatures were crafted to arrive at a legible and compact logo.

A new emblem for Panthéon-Sorbonne

The emblem evolves with a change of perspective. By taking a different approach to representing the bell tower of the Sorbonne chapel, we made it easer to reproduce the emblem while keeping it highly legible at small sizes.

The order of the elements making up the logotype is reversed, emphasising the name “Panthéon Sorbonne”. This served a crucial need to distinguish the university from the other multiple institutions using the title ‘Sorbonne’. The tagline “Université Paris 1” is added underneath, using the gold colour of the rule present in the previous logotype.

A lively colour palette

The institutional colours have been retained and enhanced for more impact. The gold swatch is sunnier, with better print visibility. The blue swatch is brighter and stands out from the Sorbonne Université blue. The primary colour palette is complemented by a broad, lively secondary palette.

Customised typographic design

The bespoke design of the Université Paris 1 Panthéon-Sorbonne wordmark was extended with the implementation of a customised typeface. This typeface enables the entire brand architecture to be applied consistently.

The graphic guidelines also include the Freight typeface family, designed in 2005 by Joshua Darden and available on the Adobe Suite. This comprehensive font brings an expressive versatility to the guidelines, thanks to its many diverse styles. A typographic choice that anticipates the university’s needs in terms of signage legibility, given that the multi-campus signage is being updated and launched at the same time.

Versatile brand guidelines

The graphic guidelines set out several layout principles, providing a flexibility adapted to the variety of communications.

The first principle, for day-to-day communication, can be used for layouts with or without imagery, and features a play of solids and watermarks highlighting the wordmark. A second principle simplifies collaborative communications. Finally, a more event-oriented principle turns the emblem into a window in which images and textures can be embedded.

With this new, coherent and flexible visual identity, Université Paris 1 Panthéon-Sorbonne strengthens its brand and succeeds in emancipating itself from a bureaucratic image to communicate its excellence and innovation.

More information

Context

This rebranding helped to strengthen a fragmented visual identity, in an environment where many other institutions use the name “Sorbonne”.

Objectives

Redesigning the graphic guidelines of Université Paris 1 Panthéon-Sorbonne to reinforce the legibility and coherence of its visual identity, while respecting its historical heritage. Optimising communication flexibility, particularly for multi-campus signage and multi channel deployment.