Creative Thought Matters.
Claiming our distinctive identity.
Skidmore’s identity encompasses the institution’s historic strengths in the fine, performing, and studio arts; its early championing of “mind and hand” and interdisciplinary study; and its continuing ability to attract well-rounded and multidimensional students, faculty, and staff—including students whose breadth of interests can best be accommodated by two or more majors or minors. Built on this foundation is a tradition of achievement in the humanities, natural sciences, and social sciences; close research, scholarly, and artistic collaboration between faculty and students; and faculty research that frequently crosses disciplinary boundaries.
BRAND PLATFORM
Creative Thought Matters is a philosophy. But more than that, it describes what’s different at Skidmore. To help our audiences better understand what we mean and to protect its prominence, here are a few guidelines to help us remember what it is, and what it isn’t.
- It’s how we do things.
Creative Thought Matters is our positioning on thought and impact. It’s a practice that prepares our students to think critically about any situation, and bring unexpected solutions to everything we do. - It’s who we are.
It’s how our community of individuals collaborates, and how we diff erentiate ourselves from our peers. Creative Thought Matters attracts multi dimensional students, faculty, and staff — people with a breadth of interests who share them on campus and with our community. - It isn’t a standalone tagline.
If you do choose to represent it on covers or other places with high visual priority, use it as a high-level headline. From there, work to describe what it means, so readers understand what we mean when we say “Creative Thought Matters” at Skidmore. - It isn’t an acronym.
“Creative Thought Matters” should always be represented as a full statement, with full words. We might say “CTM” internally to save time, but it should not find its way into materials or other external communications.
LOCKUPS
The phrase “Creative Thought Matters”
needs to be present in all major communications from the College. Of course, the statement
can be placed on publications, web pages, and merchandise to literally state our case.
Here are a few ways we are using “Creative Thought Matters” as a visual identifier
in our communications. Please follow these guidelines to ensure consistency.
Things to keep in mind:
The idea is to represent the brand platform more heavily within body copy, in the
process of telling a story.
We shouldn’t have to plaster the phrase itself everywhere within one piece of communications to get the message across.
It should be infused into all brand experiences, but it should never sound hokey or forced.
Ultimately, we use the platform in ways that seamlessly illustrate our philosophy on thought and impact, since this is an integral part of Skidmore’s DNA.
Mercury Display Semibold
(initial caps, -5 tracking. 100% horizontal and vertical scale)
Version 1
- used for large, display headlines
- typeset in serif font, Mercury
- one-line version preferred, but
- stacking as three lines also works (see next page for example)
Proxima Nova Regular
(all caps, +100 tracking, 100% horizontal and vertical scale)
Version 2
- used as a small labeling device in top left or right corner of a page spread
- used as a pay-off line at the bottom of a page
- typeset in sans-serif font, Proxima Nova, all caps, always at a small size (7pt to 10 pt)
Proxima Nova Medium
(all caps, full justification, 3:2 box ratio, text inset top and bottom by 1x cap
height; perimeter box line weight equals stroke weight)
Version 3
- stacked on three lines, and contained within a hairline box frame
- another way to round out communications, or use as a sign-off element
CLEAR SPACE
To maintain maximum impact and legibility, clear space must be maintained around all
versions of the “Creative Thought Matters”
lockup. This area is measured using
the width of the capital S in the wordmark, as shown (just like we do with the Skidmore
wordmark, as shown below).
No other graphic elements, typography, rules, or images should appear inside this clear space.
Version 1
Version 2
Version 3
USAGE
A few examples of how we use "Creative Thought Matters" lockups in our communications
Use as a headline
Tagline underneath logo
Use under the Skidmore wordmark as long as these entities have enough separation between them - we would never tightly lockup "Creative Thought Matters" with the Skidmore Wordmark.
Use within subheads and woven into body copy
