The Marywood Athletics and Recreation Department unveiled a new logo to update its athletic identity.

Marywood Athletics made the initial announcement via Twitter in July.

Pleased to announce we’ve officially changed our logo! New website will launch 7/25! pic.twitter.com/sy5JgPZOvG

— Marywood Athletics (@marywoodpacers) July 15, 2017

Assistant Director of Athletics and Recreation for Communications Andrew Smith explained the

Assistant Director of Athletics and Recreation for Communications Andrew Smith explained the reasoning behind the move and said, “We felt that the “M” didn’t symbolize anything athletically.”

According to Smith, the department saw an earlier adaptation of the logo online and thought “it was the perfect fit for what we were looking for to represent Marywood Athletics.”

Director of Athletics and Recreation Dr. Mary Jo Gunning echoed Smith’s remarks in an article on the Marywood Pacer website.

“The new athletics logo symbolizes the strength of Pacer sports and projects a spirit of competitiveness,” said Gunning. “It is an appropriate visual representation of Marywood’s current athletic tradition and future expectations.”

Ryan Gaylets designed Marywood’s new athletic identity. He graduated from Kutztown University with a Bachelor of Fine Arts in Communication Design and is currently a lead art director for Pepsi NFL.

Gaylets worked on the original logo as a personal project while his brother played baseball for Marywood.

According to Gaylets, Smith was the first Marywood representative to reach out to him about purchasing the logo.
Gaylets also reached out to other student athletes about the design.

“I have spoken with many student athletes from Marywood to find out what they would like to see and took that feedback into consideration during the design process,” said Gaylets.

Gaylets eventually worked with Marywood Art Director Carrie Toomey to “set up the identity guidelines and word marks for the University.”

Gaylets and Toomey subsequently worked together to create a new athletic identity for the university.
Gaylets said he wanted to create a logo that Marywood student-athletes would be eager to wear.

“Being a former athlete myself, I wanted to create something that would motivate the students and give them something that they will feel proud to wear when representing Marywood,” he said.

In addition to the new logo, Marywood Athletics updated its website, created a new uniform policy effective July 1 and implemented athletic identity guidelines which govern acceptable usage of Pacer logos.

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Twitter: @JohnFerraroTWW