Visual Identity Manual

Calvin College's campus, with its stylistic echoes of Frank Lloyd Wright, gives an impression of uncluttered cleanliness and serene organic unity.

This visual identity program is designed to endow Calvin publications with a similarly clean and unified look. Calvin's new image system, the chief emblem of our community, also underscores the relationship of all the divisions under the umbrella of the college.

Leading communications theorists agree that when the visual identity of an organization in managed through its communications, the visual identity itself becomes an organizational resource. Our visual identity program is just such a resource for you.

Designed to enhance your communications, this reference manual gives you clear guidelines for implementing the visual identity in a range of communication vehicles. Please support the program by using it carefully and often.

(from Calvin's Visual Identity Manual, 1995)

Though many things have changed at Calvin since that opening was written in 1995, our commitment to a comprehensive and coherent visual identity has not. This site contains much of the information contained in the original Visual Identity Manual as well as updated material. Together with the web style guide and the writing style guide, this new Visual Identity Manual demonstrates how to properly represent Calvin College in print media.

In the following pages, this manual will show how to properly use the pieces of Calvin's visual identity, what to avoid, and how to get logos and templates.