EVANSVILLE, Ind. — It was brought to Christopher Pietruszkiewicz’s attention in July, when he assumed office as the next president of the University of Evansville, that there was some unintentional division at the school.

He made it a top priority in the last 10 months, working behind closed doors to help address what many saw as a glaring distinction between the institution and its athletic department. Friday morning at Ridgway University Center, Pietruszkiewicz introduced a series of logo changes that he and others believe will create unity and appeal to everyone.

The transition period is underway but will take some time before it’s fully complete.

“It was obvious from the beginning that members of the UE family share a deep pride in the history of this place, but we were not all speaking with the same voice,” Pietruszkiewicz said. “Now, we’re equipped with the tools to strategically connect the institution and athletics into one single brand to attract the next generation of Aces.”

The unveiling kicked off the school’s annual “Pep and Vim” day of giving.

It was a time-consuming and will be an expensive gift to students, alumni and facility. But the updated institution and athletics marks are almost identical unlike the previous ones. Before, the school's main logo featured its administration building and the athletic a large star shooting out from the "A" in Aces.

UE wanted one standard brand. Some like the change. Others hope to get used to it. In athletics, they feel it accomplished the goal.

“It’s funny, I’ve got some coaches who’ve said, ‘I don’t know if I like it. We look like every other big-time school that’s out there,'” said UE athletics director Mark Spencer. “And I said, ‘That’s the point.’ I watched the (Kentucky) and Houston game (two weeks ago in the NCAA men’s basketball tournament) and said, 'If we were playing one of those two and had our white university logo next to theirs, you wouldn’t tell the difference between the homemade, small school logo and the big school.'

“You wouldn’t know the difference, and that’s the whole point.”

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The appeal to everyone was further evidenced by the secondary logo for athletics. It’s now an updated version of the old script “Aces” logo that’s in cursive lettering. That was an easy call for Ohio-based marketing and branding firm Ologie, which UE partnered with on the project.

UE men’s basketball brought back its sleeved-uniforms, which had the script logo, for “throwback night” this past winter. It will now play a larger part of their brand, similar to Michigan State and Loyola. Spencer noted that it’s become a standard font for Nike, which also outfits the Aces.

Ologie executive creative director Paul Davis said that too often an identity project tries to be trendy instead of authentic. The popularity of the script logo made it an easy call to stay true to its roots.

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Former UE basketball standout Marcus Wilson, who was the keynote speaker at Friday’s annual “Lunch with the Aces,” is happy with that decision.

“You want to hold onto the history a little bit; you don’t just want to scrap everything,” said Wilson, the 1999 Missouri Valley Conference Player of the Year. “Keeping the script and having the new ‘UE’ (logo) is good. I like blending the old with the new.”

Other noteworthy changes are the de-emphasis of the color orange. It’s now lighter than years past and will be used as an accent color rather than another secondary.

Related to the old script logo, UE athletics will also shift to calling itself the “Aces” instead of “Purple Aces.” Spencer said the reason for this boiled down to simplifying things and, again, going back to the roots of the school.

“We’re still the Purple Aces, but we’re not going to brand ourselves like that anymore,” Spencer said. “Nobody says (Michigan State is the) ‘Green Spartans.’ It doesn’t really define who we are. We’re the Aces. (Purple) became part of it more in the last 20 years.”

The rollout is expected to take at least a year before it's fully transitioned across all athletics’ programs.