[Mick]

The problem starts with the name, Lifetime Cardinal.

An ideal name has not more than three syllables and eleven letters.
(A longer name quickly gets abbreviated 
(hence Mercedes, not Mercedes Benz,
and FedEx, not Federal Express.)

Any effort at a logo is doomed by that name, Lifetime Cardinal.
But the inexplicable typeface treatment makes that problem worse.

So, eventually it will evolve into LifeCard?

I'd go with CardLife. One word, two syllables. Implies Card for Life.

I love that. It might have some youthful street cred, too. 

But in my experience, rebranding by 20 or 30 degrees does not usually address the core problem. Most rebrands I have seen achieve nothing and tend to be a "Hail Mary" for a company or product that thinks it should be growing but isn't. And yet the rebrands are a distraction and a lot of work. Usually, it's an underlying market or product problem, and that's what we have here...

Merch is not the revenue driver for Lifetime Cardinal. If you're a big donor opening up your checkbook, do you want to give the big bucks to "CardLife" or "Lifetime Cardinal"?  I'm guessing the latter. It feels more serious and less frivilous. But I'm terrible at this stuff, so I'll defer to the gurus.

The only rebrands that really work like they're intended are those that reflect a significant improvement in the underlying product or service. They're rare, expensive, difficult, and don't work all that often. They can inadvertently work in reverse; e.g., a luxury jewelry chain that decides to capture 5% more market share by selling relatively inexpensive goods to a less tony audience, one with which their primary audience does not care to be associated.

A Stanford rebrand would happen after they get into bowl games for a few years, or go 10-3. That kicks off a rebrand nicely.

[Mick]

The problem starts with the name, Lifetime Cardinal.

An ideal name has not more than three syllables and eleven letters.
(A longer name quickly gets abbreviated 
(hence Mercedes, not Mercedes Benz,
and FedEx, not Federal Express.)

Any effort at a logo is doomed by that name, Lifetime Cardinal.
But the inexplicable typeface treatment makes that problem worse.

So, eventually it will evolve into LifeCard?

I'd go with CardLife. One word, two syllables. Implies Card for Life.

I love that. It might have some youthful street cred, too. 

But in my experience, rebranding by 20 or 30 degrees does not usually address the core problem. Most rebrands I have seen achieve nothing and tend to be a "Hail Mary" for a company or product that thinks it should be growing but isn't. And yet the rebrands are a distraction and a lot of work. Usually, it's an underlying market or product problem, and that's what we have here...

Merch is not the revenue driver for Lifetime Cardinal. If you're a big donor opening up your checkbook, do you want to give the big bucks to "CardLife" or "Lifetime Cardinal"?  I'm guessing the latter. It feels more serious and less frivilous. But I'm terrible at this stuff, so I'll defer to the gurus.

The only rebrands that really work like they're intended are those that reflect a significant improvement in the underlying product or service. They're rare, expensive, difficult, and don't work all that often. They can inadvertently work in reverse; e.g., a luxury jewelry chain that decides to capture 5% more market share by selling relatively inexpensive goods to a less tony audience, one with which their primary audience does not care to be associated.

A Stanford rebrand would happen after they get into bowl games for a few years, or go 10-3. That kicks off a rebrand nicely.