Say goodbye to Billy Bluejay. At least, the Billy Bluejay that has served as Creighton’s mascot and logo for the last 41 years. The Bluejays have a new look.
Creighton recently held an open house at CenturyLink Center Omaha to reveal the new logo for Creighton athletics and give fans a first look at the Bluejays’ new court.
The Oct. 9 event began when men’s basketball head coach Greg McDermott stepped up to the podium and reminded those in attendance of the success of the fall sports. Creighton’s president, the Rev. Timothy Lannon, S.J., also addressed the crowd.
With the words out of the way, the time for action finally arrived as the countdown began. When it hit zero, the cover was pulled off the court and the new center-court logo was revealed as applause filled the arena.
The script Jays is gone; in its place is the new secondary logo: a blue jay head graphic placed over a ‘C.’ The new video board hanging over the court also displayed the primary logo, the blue jay graphic above a Creighton word mark. The logo incorporates three shades of blue, two shades of gray and white.
“It’s bold, proud, it’s assertive,” Lannon said. “I am really happy with it.”
Associate athletic director Mark Burgers said the new logo provided a good balance between historical and futuristic looks.
Senior guard Jahenns Manigat said he was happy with the result of the redesign.
“I love it,” Manigat said. “It’s a little different from what I’m used to in my last three years here, but I’m all for it.”
Creighton wanted a logo that more clearly identifies them as the Creighton Bluejays.
“If you look across the Big East schools and the benchmarking, Villanova has the ‘V’ and Xavier has the ‘X’ and you go down all the schools; we incorporated the ‘C’ because we thought that was important,” Burgers said.
McDermott said the redesigned logo having “Creighton” and the “C” incorporated would help in recruiting as well as it is more recognizable as Creighton’s logo.
“I think there’s a sense of toughness to that logo … I think it looks great,” McDermott said. “I think it’s a clean look. It has our ‘C’ in the background, which is really important, and I think the combination of that really turned
out well.”
Burgers said the rebranding was part of a complete evaluation of the athletic department as the university moved into a new conference.
“The transition to the Big East provides great opportunities to make this change; why not do it now?” Lannon said.
The logo was designed by Mongoose Graphics, a design company run by brothers Craig and Cory Whitlock. The Whitlocks, who also designed South Dakota State’s current logo, had no direct ties to Creighton but still decided to donate the money they were given for the job back to Creighton and into a scholarship fund.
Although the men’s basketball team hosted the event, this new logo will be used for all sports. The sport-specific logos of previously used are a thing of the past.
The rebranding process is not yet complete, however. The Whitlock brothers are still working on creating a full-body version of the new blue jay logo, and a redesigned logo for the university as a whole is under construction as well.
The Billy Bluejay logo may have been replaced, but McDermott wanted to let fans know that Billy himself is still very much a part of Creighton athletics.
“Billy will be here forever,” McDermott said. “He’s been an important part of our history and out tradition. It’s just that he’s going to have a little different look.”
Burgers said the new Billy Bluejay mascot, which is being designed to resemble the new logo is still in the development stages. He’ll arrive in time for basketball season according to Burgers, although he might not be ready by the first game
The new logo appears for the first time on the scoreboard to the Creighton community on Oct. 9.