This morning, VandySports.com launched a brand new corporate logo identity. "It was time for us to make a new and dramatic statement for our community," said Mike Rapp, one of the site's publishers.

Rapp, who designed the new logo, runs a design firm called Gear. The company specializes in creating brand identities, Web site designs, and product packaging.

"We think this new logo will be a very recognizable way to brand Vandy's premiere fan site in the market," said Rapp. "It's certainly one of the more exciting logo projects I've gotten to work on."

VandySports.com is the exclusive Vanderbilt fan site on the Rivals.com network.

"The old logo was VandySports.com's identity for almost five years," said Rapp, who designed both the original and new logos. "It served us well, but the fantastic growth of the site begged for a fresh look."

Since VandySports.com's launch, the online community went from near obsurity to the leading news and fan interaction site on the Web.

"Since Chris Lee first started VandySports.com, the site's visibility and position of authority within the Vandy sports community has certainly changed," said Rapp. "Over the past two years alone, VandySports.com's paid subscriptions doubled — due in large part to Jesse Johnson's fantastic recruiting coverage and the continuing rapid expansion of the Rivals network.

"VandySports.com's fantastic growth led us to believe that it would be time to make a change to our graphic identity."

The new logo has a "retro" feel that makes an immediate impact. The design is similar to the uniform designs that Vanderbilt's basketball and football teams used in the 1970s, including the football teams that participated in the Gator Bowl and Hall of Fame Bowl.

The logo design is also similar to the style of graphic T-shirts that are now popular with younger sports fans.

"The new logo was one of the original options I had designed five years ago," continued Rapp. "We all thought it was cool at the time, but decided to go with the block letters that better mimicked Vanderbilt University's then-new corporate identity. Back then, we were just trying to get some momentum. Now, we're definitely at a different stage of our growth, where we needed something that was more unique to our site."

The new logo is also easier to read than the previous logo, given Rivals.com's page templates that dictate the physical size of the logo's appearance throughout the network. "Network templates allow for a predetermined and unchangeable area for logo placement on site pages," said Rapp. "When you shrink the new logo down, it still reads great.

"Another key advantage to the new logo is that it shows our community's name as it actually is: One word, with a capitol 'S'," continued Rapp. "The previous logo provided separation between Vandy and Sports, but it opened up for interpretation how the site name should appear in print. The new logo clearly shows the proper way to display the site's name.

"Another key marketing issue we wanted to resolve is that 'dot com' is actually an essential part of our name. Previously, a lot of people would simply call us 'VandySports' and drop the 'dot com.' I had seen other sites actually spell it out in their official logo, and thought that made a lot of sense from a marketing standpoint. It worked perfectly with the new logo, because I could tuck it in above the swirling tail."

One of the main reasons VandySports.com adopted a new logo was to better differentiate itself from the university's Web site, vucommodores.com.

"Fans would sometimes confuse us with the school's official site, in part because our logo looked so similar to Vanderbilt's own athletics logo," said Rapp. "The similarity probably served us well in the beginning, but over time it became a marketing problem — particularly with fans that were new to the online world.

"NCAA rules prohibit member schools to cover recruiting, and that is the main emphasis of Rivals and VandySports.com," said Rapp. "We increasingly felt the need to separate ourselves from the school's site to help fans understand there was a difference in our coverage.

"Also, sometimes fans would confront us about useability issues that were actually encountering only at vucommodores.com — particularly the fact that the school's Web network, CSTV, does not accommodate Macintosh users for video content.

"Rivals.com was the first network to provide streaming video content on demand for all operating systems and Web browsers. Streaming video and audio is something that has long been a huge priority for Rivals, and has been a differentiating feature between us and all of our competition. We thought it was a wise marketing move to give fans a clearer visual distinction."

The change to VandySports.com's graphic identity was also influenced by the changing fan interests within the Vanderbilt athletics community. When the site first launched, the baseball program was a minor focus of the school and the site. Since then, baseball has become one of the most visible and successful sports programs on campus, and a key part of VandySports.com's premium subscriber coverage.

"VandySports.com has been the market leader in covering the baseball program's recruiting, game day action, and news," said Rapp. "We've made it one of our top three priorities, along with the men's basketball and football programs.

"This past season, Vanderbilt ranked No. 1 in the nation 13 of the 15 weeks, and had record attendance and fan interest. No school program has had that kind of sustained visibility in modern history.

"VandySports.com has become one of Rivals' biggest baseball sites. Through our partnership with Kendall Rogers of Rivals.com and Mark Ethridge of SEBaseball.com, we've enjoyed a dramatic rise in baseball subscriptions. We thought it made a lot of sense to have a logo that tied more closely to a traditional baseball imagery, while still maintaining a connection with our two other product lines, men's basketball and football."

The typeface used as the basis for the new logo is called Fenway Park. The script form was actually copied from the original letter forms used in the Boston Red Sox logo. Ironically, the Red Sox are Vanderbilt head baseball coach Tim Corbin's favorite pro team.

"The connection wasn't intentional, but perhaps we can call it karma," joked Rapp. "Maybe Tim will buy one of our new T-shirts."

Speaking of T-shirts, VandySports.com has plans to market new merchandise bearing the site's logo.

"We talked about doing some things for this past baseball season, but felt it was best to wait until we switched to the new logo," said Rapp. "We're working on some new ideas for the coming school year that we think hard core Vandy sports fans will really love. They'll be unique, and will really stand out from the crowd — which is exactly what VandySports.com fans want!"