Catholic Newman Club Brand Identity
This club is close to my heart as I oversaw the growth of this club as a member to campus minister from 2018 to 2022. As time passed by, I started to develop a branding guideline for a "mom and pop" size organization.
Logo
The logo needed to reflect the mission and purpose of the club and its values in relation to student engagement and life with the Catholic Church.
The Mark
From the top, it has a cross which denotes the relationship to the Catholic Church and Christ. From there, there are three petals, each representing the three components of God, God the Father, God the Son, and God the Holy Spirit. In each of those petals are olive branches pointing towards the cross, signifying that all life comes from Him and only growth can be possible with Him. I decided to use various forms of our primary colors inside the petals to showcase that no matter if there is light or darkness, Christ still reigns on top.
The Words
Many university Catholic clubs across the nation are called Catholic Newman Clubs. This is the name the club was founded so we kept the same name. The word Newman is the only word that is in color. Many people ask why the name Newman is in there as Catholic clubs were found under St. John Henry Newman since the 1800s. Also, it gives a way to reduce the offset of people from immediately looking at the word Catholic to rather looking at Newman since the word Catholic could bring some negative meaning to people.
Colors
Primary Colors
The direction to go with green as the primary color is based of the olive branch. In the story of Noah's ark, the dove that returned to Noah brought an olive leaf to signify there was life. There are other references such as the use of olive oil for healing. Thus, the color is to give this sense of spirituality, healing, growth, and life.
From left to right:
Olive Green, Light Olive Green, Dark Olive Green, Faded Olive Green, Bright Olive Green, Light Tan, Olive Black
Secondary Colors
These colors are inspired on the liturgical calendar with the colors associated per season as well as the furnishings in the church.
From left to right:
Ordinary Time, Lent/Advent, Gaudette, Easter, Pentecost, Brass, Wood
Typefaces
Ever ancient and ever new — inspired by this saying in the church, we decide to go with three typefaces.
Both Alegreya and Alegreya Sans are similar but different at the same time. Because we want to reflect the youthfulness of the club from our student body to the antiquity of the church, these typefaces would be able to deliver that message and still have sense of consistency among the brand.
Optima is another typeface that can be used to describe the sacredness and solemnity of the church and formal events from the club. During our weekly Mass on campus, we offer worship aids to our students follow along. We use a music selection licensed through OneLicense with songs selected from Oregon Catholic Press (OCP). Because of this selection, they use Optima as one of their primary typefaces and to keep consistency with our brand and theirs, we use Optima in our worship aids. It also helps to reduce the distraction by having a clean and elegant typeface.
Pattern Design
Because the inspiration is based off the olive leaf, our pattern designs are leaves in different forms to give life to our graphics while strengthening the brand identity.
Social Media Posts
Digital Files
Marketing Materials
Print Collateral
Worship Aids
Posters
Email Marketing
We send out weekly newsletters to our campus community informing them of upcoming events and a motivational message. Furthermore, with mail merging capabilities, we are able to send off "personalized" emails to our recipients with their names appearing in the email. This is to help give a more personal feel that we are sending to them specifically, and potentially boosting engagement.