Welcome back to school everyone!

While the start of a semester is always a mixed-bag of emotions and confusion, we on The Signal’s staff want to briefly talk about our goals for giving all here at UHCL and the broader Clear Lake Community the best possible outlet for good, informative content we can give.

Which is why we’re choosing to kick off this New Year of The Signal with more staff, more ideas, and more ambition. So, keep reading to find out more of what’s in store for us and you throughout this next year!

We’re on a mission

This semester, The Signal wants to further its growing expansion into multimedia production. This involves: podcasts, short-form videos, social media coverage, and more visual storytelling to better reflect how we all now consume news and content.

While written reporting will remain a key part of the organization, we’re now also looking for contributors to produce content across our various platforms. This shift is meant to broaden the publication’s reach and change how students view our campus media–not as a newspaper, but as a full student media organization.

The Signal aims to expand several projects:

• Our podcasts, including a revamped Talk With A Hawk, featuring campus discussions, interviews, and student perspectives.

• A stronger social media presence, sharing news and updates in an informative and personal way, including more short-form video content created for platforms such as Instagram and TikTok.

• Establishing the Mixed Signals column on our website and regularly publishing contributions for it.

• Expanded photo galleries that highlight events, organizations, and everyday moments on campus and around it.

• Graphic art to contribute to the publication’s visual identity through design, branding, and digital graphics.

These changes are meant to reflect a larger rebrand aimed at making revamping our organization’s output. The goal is to be more accessible, visual, and engaging, while meeting more audiences on platforms where they’re already at.

Speaking of the rebrand…

New Year, New Logo

Those with a keen eye for detail might have noticed the logo on this website’s upper-left corner. And for those wondering, yes, it’s new!

Where the ancient hawk PNG shouting out signal bars used to sit now resides a design that blends this organization’s two identities: good, old fashioned text-based journalism and news put out on the internet, opening the door for near limitless possibilities. 

The concept for the design itself came to us as a result last semester’s Logo Redesign Contest, which had tons of great submissions with all kinds of unique and intriguing ideas for how we’d like to present this new, forward-facing version of ourselves to you.

We’re more than just a student paper

This rebrand highlights the variety of roles involved in student media. In addition to writers and editors, the publication now relies on photographers, videographers, podcast producers, graphic artists, and social media managers. This opens the door for students of all interests and skills to contribute, even if writing isn’t their strong suit.

By embracing multimedia and welcoming change, The Signal hopes to shift past perceptions over who we are and what we do, and show that this organization is more than what students may have thought of it in the past.

It is not just a newspaper; it is a growing, evolving media outlet built to represent campus voices in new and creative ways, and it’s here for you.