AUBURN, Alabama — Auburn has updated its "shield" logo for academics and athletics, and though the changes are slight, it is the most noticeable change for the university's insignia since the turn of the century.

The new logo utilizes the traditional "AU" shield framework, but closes the white space between the "A" and "U" to provide more focus on the "A" for Auburn. The "U" in the logo is also shorter in height than in the previous version.

The new design was leaked to Auburn Undercover on Wednesday and confirmed by Auburn University in an email correspondence Thursday with Auburn Undercover.

"Auburn updated its visual identity system to make it compatible with the many ways, especially digital, in which it is now used and to help us further elevate the Auburn brand," said Mike Clardy, the university's assistant vice president for communications. "It’s in fact already in partial use."

Auburn Undercover was provided an image Wednesday of the updated look of the logo, along with new font, in a masthead soon to be used by the university on the academics side of the institution. On Thursday, the university confirmed the veracity of the logo and later provided the new logo the athletics department will soon use.

Auburn’s athletics department will use the new logo, Clardy said. The timing of the new logo’s release, however, will not allow the athletics department to immediately include the new shield on uniforms. The decal on Auburn’s football helmet and the logo at midfield inside Jordan-Hare Stadium will not change in 2019, a source said, but they will in the future. Equipment with the original logo created in 1966 has already been ordered for the upcoming seasons in most sports.

The athletics and academics logos are below. Other treatments will include "University" with "Auburn" also included for the academic logos, Clardy said.

Auburn has utilized the "AU" shield on its football helmets since 1966.

The Auburn Uniform Database reports the university will also begin using the font "Sabon" instead of the traditional "Copperplate" the school has utilized in athletics.

UPDATE (6 p.m., Friday): "Copperplate is still in use" by the athletics department as a font, a university spokesperson said. The academics side of the university will utilize the "Unitext" font, as seen below in a navy-blue graphic. A spokesperson has not answered whether the athletics department will switch to Sabon at a future date.

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The new logo is not the first time the university has toyed with the idea of rebranding the university's logo. The university held a contest and had its fans, faculty and students consider 42 different logo concepts in 1995, according to The War Eagle Reader.

In 1995, then Auburn University president William V. Muse nearly had a mutiny on his hands after his attempt to unite the university’s various colleges, programs, and departments under a single, completely new logo was announced that February on a Birmingham sports radio talk show. That the show’s host, Doug Layton, was the color man for University of Alabama football broadcasts probably didn’t help. “Floods of angry calls poured into the radio station,” the Plainsman reported. “Auburn also felt the fury of its fans as a whirlwind of unhappy phone calls sent University Relations seeking shelter.” Muse’s intentions, which technically traced to 1993, weren’t exactly a secret. Word that Auburn was toying with unifying everything from football helmets to envelopes under a single (and officially officially officially official) “visual identifier” first made local news in the summer of ’94.

None of the logos were chosen in 1995, and Auburn stuck with its traditional "AU" shield logo.