Courtesy of Lewis & Clark
After a process that has been in the works for several months, Lewis & Clark has unveiled the design of the new River Otter mascot — an otter’s head framed by trees. On Feb. 20, the school presented the design as part of the end of River Otter week, an event series designed to generate excitement over the new logo.
To create the design, LC partnered with the Portland-headquartered advertising agency Wieden+Kennedy. On Feb. 26, The Mossy Log spoke to Associate Vice President for Communications Stacey Kim ’94 and two representatives from the agency, Senior Designer Dave Hagen and Group Design Director Patrick Nistler, to learn more about the process of developing the logo and branding.
Kim explained that the mascot design process began nearly a year before the reveal, when the college started identifying potential creative partners.
“We were interested in working with someone in Portland who would understand what it means to be a part of the cultural fabric of Portland and could bring that side of the work together with our positioning in Portland, too,” Kim said.
Wieden+Kennedy is an independently-owned firm with offices around the world. They are most well-known for designing campaigns for brands like Coca-Cola and Nike, including creating Nike’s “Just Do It” tagline.
The team at the agency did not start the design process until the River Otter was officially selected as LC’s new mascot on Oct. 3, 2025. Then they moved into an intensive research and design phase including meeting with communications staff, attending the campus mascot debates, and hosting an all-day series of focus groups with students, alumni, faculty, staff and athletics representatives.
“With the focus groups and hearing from the comms team, it sounded like they really wanted something confident and stoic. There was some hesitation that it could be too cute, and with a river otter, they’re naturally very cute. So, that was one of the challenges, was to take a cute animal and make it fierce or heroic, without being too aggressive,” Hagen said.
Nistler expanded on this approach.
“We did ask every focus group, ‘how can we mess this up? Like, what would be the worst thing we could do?’ And everyone said, ‘make it too cute,’” he said.
This feedback informed the design of the otter, as did significant research looking at photos and videos of the animal. The team also dedicated a day to observing river otters at the Oregon Zoo.
“I think it wasn’t until we actually got there that you could get a sense of their personalities and some of those specifics of their anatomy. That ear, for example, was something that I noticed at the zoo. The otters were sleeping, and you could see the shape of their ear, which was kind of like a leaf shape,” Hagen said. “I saw it, and then it ended up in the final logo.”
Another influence that connected the design to the Pacific Northwest are the trees framing the otter.
“One particular source of inspiration was found on a campus tour when we were looking out from the president’s office at Mount Hood. And you see Mount Hood flanked on the left and right by the forest. And that is the inspiration for the general layout and the otter in the middle, the two trees on the side,” Hagen said. “Not only is the River Otter positioned heroically like Mount Hood, but with the forest there, it embodies the environmental concerns and the location and the pride of the Pacific Northwest.”
In designing the new messaging, Wieden+Kennedy drew extensively from other conversations with members of the community. They say that the phrase “Defend the Den” came from a conversation with a baseball coach, and “Go Otts” originated from students.
The team noted that they had received significant approval from the community since the design was released.
“In general, the response has been overwhelmingly positive. It was really fun to be on campus all last week, and the vibes felt really high and people were just really into it,” Kim said.
Kim noted that though some alumni have been resistant to the process of changing the college’s mascot, she has seen many begin to come around after seeing the design.
“Even people who were initially really skeptical, once they saw the mascot, once they saw the design and how amazingly well done it is, many of them are like, ‘okay, I mean, I’m still sad I’m not a Pioneer anymore, but I get it. I can work with this,’” she said.
Kim said that even some of the more pessimistic comments she saw generated productive conversations on social media.
Kim, Nistler and Hagen expressed gratitude for the partnership and optimism in looking ahead to further development. They expect a name and larger narrative around the mascot to be released in the fall, emphasizing that they wanted to continue listening to the community’s responses to the mascot and build something authentic.
“We initially just really pushed for what we’re calling ‘authentic fandom.’ We’re not college students. We don’t go to Lewis & Clark. So we wanted the students to come up with everything themselves,” Nistler said. “We’ll launch the logo, give it a year, I’m sure songs will come out. I’m sure stories will come out and (we’ll) just see what they create and let them make the fandom themselves.”
Kim stressed the significance of the process of choosing and designing a new mascot.
“Hopefully the school never changes its mascot again. It’s literally a once in a lifetime thing to do at the school. And so it felt both like something that carried a lot of weight, and also something that just felt really infused with joy,” she said.
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