Duke University Logo

About Duke University

Duke University is a private university in Durham, North Carolina. It opened in 1838 as Brown's Schoolhouse, a subscription school in what is now Trinity, North Carolina, and was later renamed Union Institute Academy (1841), Normal College (1851) and Trinity College (1859). It moved to Durham in 1892 and became Duke University in 1924, honouring Washington Duke.

Its colours are Duke blue and white, its athletic teams are the Blue Devils, and its Latin motto is "Eruditio et Religio", translated as "Knowledge and Religion". In fall 2025 it had 17,325 students, of whom 6,525 were undergraduates and 10,800 postgraduates.

The Duke University Logo: Design and Meaning

The logo on this page is the word "Duke" in large dark-blue serif letters with the word "UNIVERSITY" in small, widely spaced capitals underneath. The serif letters, with their flared ends, give it a traditional, academic look, and the use of one blue matches the university's Duke blue.

This is a wordmark rather than the university's shield or its Blue Devil athletic mascot, which are separate marks. Wikipedia's article does not describe the design history of this wordmark, so we do not date it.