The majority of the cover of the Yale viewbook is blank—or, more accurately, it’s blue. The only text—“Yale,” in large letters, “A Guide to Yale College,” in small print—is placed at the top and bottom of the page, leaving a large blue space unoccupied in the middle. It’s plain and uncomplicated, almost as someone didn’t spend a lot of time on it. However, as is always the case when dealing with Yale’s public image, what you see is only the beginning of the story.

Everything from the font (specially created for Yale by renowned type designer Matthew Carter) to the color of the page (a precisely calculated shade known as Yale Blue) was planned and designed carefully by employees responsible for crafting Yale’s image, all working towards a common goal: presenting Yale to the world in the best possible light.

Thomas Mattia, the Chief Communications Officer of the Yale Office of Public Affairs, is one of these employees, but he is quick to point out that his office is merely one cog in the machine.

“Maintaining and growing and enhancing our public image requires efforts of a lot of people,” he said. “The Development Office, the Office of Public Affairs, the deans, and President Levin all have a role. From our standpoint, our task is managing the relationship with external media stakeholders, print media, online media and social media.”

Meanwhile, the Office of New Haven and State Affairs maintains relationships with the city and state, and the Office of International Affairs deals with international organization stakeholders like governments and other universities.

Presenting a unified image to the world starts with the smallest details, he said. “It could be about the design of the logo on materials, a certain presentation of the word ‘Yale’ in clean crisp letters, a consistency of colors, the way Yale Blue is identified. We can take this visual language and play it out with websites and publications.”

Everything Yale prints or publishes online conforms to guidelines meant to unify Yale’s image. In 2007, Yale adopted its new typeface, which is now used on all major publications, signage, and online materials.

Working closely with University Printer John Gambell, Pamela Hovland, a senior critic in the Art School’s design department, and her studio are currently redesigning the Yale Admissions Office website by the request of Dean of Admissions Jeffrey Brenzel.

Hovland’s studio, which hopes to launch the new website this spring, first performed a “visual audit” of peer institutions’ websites to determine the best way to form Yale’s unique public image. The studio found that a major problem in online communications is a lack of uniformity.

“If someone is on the admissions office site, and they link to the art gallery website or the Medical School website, then over to chemistry, in a perfect world, they would feel like they’re all in the same book, just different chapters,” she said.

Hovland described the new website redesign as exciting and innovative. “It is highly interactive and surprising, so that it’s really informative but keeps you entertained,” she said. Yale stands out from competition in so many ways, and we want this site to be one of them, so it is taking some risks, but not for the wrong reasons.”

Hovland emphasizes that Yale has always had a history of good designing. “It is more complicated now because of the access to more tools and media than in the past,” she said. The Office of Public Affairs is also working on redesigning its online communications, focusing on improving its website, increasing its presence on Facebook, and improving the internal portal system as a delivery tool for the Yale community.

Mattia’s focus on improving internal communications reflects his belief that the best communities begin by establishing their identity within and then expanding outwards. That belief is also one of the reasons he is a fan of the new admissions video, a bold public relations move the university planned and executed with the help of students and recent graduates.

“[The video] shows what the current student body feels,” he said. “I think it’s empowering for students to have a role to play.”

Hovland agrees, and says the new admissions site will prominently feature many videos, including the new musical. “A lot of enthusiasm, time, and energy went into that video,” she said. “The idea is that we would design a container appropriate for that video, and I think we’ve definitely created that container. The video is not overly serious, and that was a myth that the admissions office wanted to debunk. Yale is of course a serious place of learning full of serious students, but at the same time there are so many opportunities to have fun.”

Mattia is also quick to point out that he enjoys the video and its presentation of the Yale community. “I personally think it’s great,” he said. “My 16-year-old son is at Andover, and he thought it was super, in terms of creativity against the usual content. And it has over 300,000 hits on YouTube, which is phenomenal. The vast bulk of feedback is positive. It has gotten a lot of visibility, made Yale far more visible in a positive, fun way, which I think is a good thing. “

Mattia also noted the importance of concision and uniformity in Yale’s strategic responses to events that the university cannot anticipate or design, like the murder of Annie Le earlier this year or the dip in application numbers.

Since he was not working at Yale during the Le investigation, he was able to observe Yale’s action from afar, and judged them positively. “Tom Conroy, who was the primary spokesman for the university during the Annie Le event, has been here for 15 years, so he knows the university well,” Mattia said. “He did an excellent job in a difficult situation. President Levin did as well. He was very clear that the university was concerned for her family first and foremost, and for the safety of the community. I was watching this happen from the outside, and I think Yale handled it very well.”

That said, Mattia admits that these events will always affect Yale’s reputation in the world media.

“Of course there’s an impact on Yale’s image,” he said. “We have to do the best we can to explain that it could have happened anywhere. But it did happen here, and we have to recognize that. Our response should be clear, crisp, not very wordy or long, because we want to be easily understood,” he said. “It is always very important to be as transparent as possible and as proactive as possible.”