The Heartland Conference was an NCAA Division II collegiate athletic conference founded in 1999, with its office located in Waco, Texas. The majority of its members were in Texas, with additional schools in Arkansas, Kansas, and Oklahoma. The conference ceased operations in 2019 after eight of its nine members announced they would move to the Lone Star Conference. [1] [2]
Design and History
In August 2017, the Heartland Conference unveiled a new brand identity designed to modernize the previous brand, which had been in use since 2010. The release completed an 18-month process that began in January 2016. [3]
The 2017 logo was designed by Talia Blanton, a student in the graphic design program at the University of Arkansas Fort Smith (UAFS), a conference member institution. Blanton was one of eight students tasked with designing logo concepts as part of a class assignment supporting the conference’s rebranding efforts. Conference officials visited the class and outlined the direction and qualities they sought in the new mark. After students presented their designs, officials narrowed the field and ultimately selected Blanton’s concept. [4] [3]
Brandon Tripp, the conference’s director of communications and strategic positioning, described Blanton’s design as “very versatile and modern,” noting it “separated us from the rest of the landscape within Division II while also fitting well within it.” [4]
The 2017 brand release also introduced a set of championship and champions marks for the first time. Each of the conference’s 13 sports received a custom championship logo, and each of the 13 members (nine full and four affiliate) received access to a custom champions logo. These marks were developed by Rickabaugh Graphics, a branding firm based in Ohio. [3]
A notable feature of the 2017 identity was that the conference logo was made available in each member institution’s school colors, allowing schools to use a unifying conference mark that blended with their individual branding on applications such as jersey patches, facilities, and digital platforms. [3]
In 2018, the conference celebrated its 20th anniversary with a special logo featuring the phrase “est. 1999,” the year the league began competition. [5]
Meaning and Symbolism
The 2017 logo consisted of the letters “H” and “C” joined together to form a single shape. The right vertical line of the “H” served as the back of the “C,” with the ends of the “C” rendered in red and the “H” in navy blue. [6] No official documentation of additional symbolic meaning behind the 2017 mark has been published.
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