A preview of CSULB’s new website, featuring its re-branded magazine, Beach Magazine.

It was a subtle but noticeable change: at this year’s mayoral debate at Long Beach State (CSULB) between Damon Dunn and current Mayor-Elect Robert Garcia, the backdrop had not the classic emblem of CSULB or its Times New Roman lettering. Rather in its place, a minimalist logo made up of two solid yellow pyramids and the words “Long Beach State University,” in a clean, Century-like font.

This is the beginning of the work of Andy Hoang.

Hoang, Long Beach State’s new Associate Vice President of University Relations and Communications, has been conducting conversations about his new vision for the university. Over two hundred of them to be precise.

For Hoang, there is no reason why CSULB shouldn’t have a united brand and image in the likes of university powerhouses like UCLA or Notre Dame. One only has to look at the various extensions and monikers that CSULB has—some call it Long Beach State while others call it Cal State Long Beach, while students can buy license plates with every permutation of the university’s name—and realize that, as Hoang points out, CSULB has an identity crisis.

Hence why he is taking on the difficult task of creating a single, unifying brand for one of the nation’s leading public institutions.

“It’s not about changing a name but establishing a culture that is truly indicative of how successful CSULB is,” Hoang said. “So we have to create a holistic approach to the image of the university. That means looking at where and how we began, where we’re at, and where we’re going. The future is about knowing where we came from.”

For Hoang, it’s time for CSULB to declare its story. But telling a story in the digital age is different—it’s more than just shifting the CSULB brand into a unified image. It means fundraising from its 285K strong alumni base. It means a cleaner, more minimalist website. It means showing off the research efforts of its stellar faculty through new media. And it ultimately means a style guide for the university.

“When someone says ‘Long Beach’ anywhere in the world, we—as a city, as a university—want everyone to know exactly what they’re talking about,” Hoang said. “And we’ve never focused on these things—fundraising, a style guide—with a laser-like focus… If we begin to focus on these things, we can shape the future of CSULB for the better.”

The future Hoang hopes to see is beset with the present’s so-called identity crisis. He points to an ABC7 broadcast where CSULB was referred to, within the same story, by various monikers. Even Brian Williams on the nightly news didn’t quite know how to refer to the university. While this may seem trivial for some, for Hoang, it creates a dispersed idea of CSULB that detracts from the stellar students and faculty.

“We can’t create a vision if we have multiple identities,” Hoang said. “And in our research, we’ve discovered a few things: CSULB is viewed as one of many CSUs, it’s a commuter school, it’s a research underdog, and there’s a lack of alumni pride. Many of the people we interviewed were apologetic about graduating from a CSU but not apologetic about Long Beach—a schism. We can’t have apologetic alumni because our future depends on alumni beaming with pride.”

The Beach Magazine app for the iPad.

CSULB sits in a tough, saturated marketplace given 25 other major universities are just a short commute away. But, according to Hoang, CSULB owns its market and no one else—which is why the university brought on branding agency 160 Over 90, the same organization responsible for not only Mercedes and Audi’s massive national campaigns but taking on the branding for Michigan State and UCLA.

With the help of the agency, Hoang has already begun the process of giving off the image that he feels CSULB already has—after all, for Hoang, there’s no question that CSULB is a top-notch institution but the key is convincing prospective students and faculty as well as graduates that CSULB is a school to be proud of.

So Hoang changed the tsunami-like images of the shuttles on campus to classic “Go Beach!” imagery with beautiful photographs of CSULB dancers, athletes, and academics. He streamlined the commencement brochure into a clean, symbolic token that someone would rather hold onto than throw away (not to mention including a live webcast of the commencement and the creation of #GoBeach14 that provided the university its most successful social media campaign to date).

Perhaps Hoang’s most impressive endeavor will be the reimagining of the soon-to-be-former Beach Review magazine, reborn as just Beach Magazine. Clean, minimal, and accessible, it not only features a revamped look that focuses on unique features rather than recycled news, Hoang and crew created an entirely new website and a beautifully designed app—one of only five universities in the nation to do so. The hope is for multimedia revolving around the research of faculty members, interactive tales about things such as the creation of Blair Field, and full-length features that focus on outstanding students.

“There’s no edict that says we’re changing our name,” Hoang said. “Do I want to change our name? No. Do I want to change our image? To bring pride not only to our students but our city? To show off how beautiful and impressive this university is? To ensure that everyone thinks of us as a world-class institution? Absolutely.”