ANALYSIS OF EMBLEMS AND LOGOS OF UNIVERSITIES IN TURKEY IN TERMS OF FORM, COLOR AND CONTEXT

Abstract

Emblems and logos, which are the most significant factors of corporate identity, play a role to promote the organization's character, products, services and to increase the organization's competitiveness and brand value. The results of the related studies argue that there is a major impact of fonts, colors, elements and shapes used in emblems and logos on users' perception. As the result of the literature review conducted within this context, the lack of studies examining the font, color, shape and context elements used in university logos in Turkey has been identified and the emblems and thus the logos of 200 universities in Turkey constitute the scope of the study. The aim of the study is to find out general tendencies and current trends and to form a base for related future studies by analyzing the emblems and logos in terms of form, color, and context. The general survey model was used as the data collection method and emblems and logos were grouped using content analysis and thematic coding. Additionally, the classifications of Ceken and Aybay (2021) and Ozsoy, Tuncay and Ugur (2017) were used to analyze the elements of emblems and logos. In the light of the findings, emblems and logos in free form, consisting of one or two colors and containing symbolic and/or typographic elements are recommended for newly established universities in order to follow current design trends.