As Columbus State University begins a new academic year on Aug 12, and with the excitement of a new academic year, the university emphasizes a brand that encourages students, faculty and staff to tell our innovative and successful story of educating students in a more compelling and innovative strategy with the launch today of an identity and brand strategy for the institution.

Columbus State University fosters creativity to change lives, both within the campus community and the Columbus community at large. Columbus State builds the creative workforce and drives the creative economy in Columbus and beyond. CREATE YOU focuses on our students and the promise it reflects to its students – past, present, and future – a promise that Columbus State University will challenge seekers and creators to see possibilities from new perspectives.

Starting immediately, the words “Create You” and “Creative to the Core” now highly visible on both campuses as a reminder of what the university promises to offer – a custom-fit education that helps students build their creative muscles to see things in new ways and discover unexpected solutions.

“CSU fosters creativity to change lives. Whether a student is studying technology, science, arts, business, or education, CSU will challenge them to see possibilities from a fresh perspective,” said CSU President Chris Markwood. “Create You captures CSU’s dedication to creativity and our promise to create makers and movers who spur change in their lives, families, communities, and the world.”

CREATE YOU was uncovered after research into what makes CSU special, including a series of focus groups among students, alumni, and other key stakeholders. One of CSU’s key strengths was quickly identified; we are “creative to the core.” In fact, we came into being in 1958 because the Columbus community wanted to change the future. We’ve been intertwined ever since.

The “Create You” brand is built upon four pillars:
- Cultivating Creativity: We seek to go beyond gaining a foundation of knowledge and skills to cultivate students’ creative strength, no matter the area of study. It is an education that emphasizes experimenting, exploring, questioning, and imagining.
- Inspiring Collaboration: CSU is a model for the notion of “communiversity,” where lines between “town and gown” are blurred, fostering and supporting inspiring collaborations between the university and the city of Columbus, as well as the region, state, and world. Columbus State has a rich history of growing partnerships and creative ventures.
- Reimaging Education: We are educators first and foremost, and discovering new ways to connect, inspire, and share is at the core of who we are as an institution of higher learning. Columbus State’s students do not receive a cookie cutter education. We endeavor to instruct, inspire, and share the most advanced and effective learning methods available.
- Expanding Worlds: Columbus State takes students from where they are to where they need to be and, in the process, improves their lives and families, communities, and the world. Since 1958, we have expanded the world for more than 35,000 degree-holders by delivering an education that leads to rewarding careers. For our students, we establish a diverse learning community, on a global scale, that improves the standard of living for the world at large.

Among other branding enhancements coming this fall is a new website specifically designed to be more student-friendly, as well as a new brand color palette that adds three new secondary colors to CSU’s traditional red, white, and blue color scheme. The university will also revise all recruitment, marketing and advertising designs to reflect CREATE YOU. A new design feature is the Create You circle, representing the university’s focus on the individual.

As part of the brand strategy, CSU is hosting a #CreateYou student video contest. Students are encouraged to create videos that explain how they will create their best selves through their experience at CSU. Entries will be displayed at www.columbusstate.edu/createyou-videocontest, and voting is open to students, faculty, and staff with a limit of one vote per day per person until Oct. 17. Gift cards to CSU’s bookstore and on-campus restaurants will be offered to three winners, with amounts totaling $200 for the grand prize and $50 for two runners up.