Theology of the Body Institute Brand
Logo & Branding | 2019
The Theology of the Body Institute is the preeminent organization for instruction on Catholic/Christian sexual teaching in the world. Each year, the Theology of the Body Institute trains thousands of people from nearly every continent on earth.
In 2019, after exhausting their budget with other designers, the Theology of the Body Institute approached me to ask if I could help them arrive at a new logo and brand identity. The designers who had come before me had created visual identities for thousands of esteemed institutions--from massive international brands to Olympic teams--while I had not. This was intimidating, but I refused to let it deter me from creating something that finally resonated with the Theology of the Body Institute and could lead them into a bright future.
After an intensive design process and rigorous feedback and revisions, I designed a mark and brand identity that draw from a host of creative and theological themes of the theology of the body. The new logo is modeled after the hand-cut marks often associated with the warm pubs and gathering places of another period. Within the mark, the flowers and stars of Our Lady of Guadalupe's garments--symbols of Heaven and Earth, respectively--point towards one another in shared desire. Those flowers, rendered in Marian blue, also reference the Romantics' symbol of earthly longing for the Divine. Finally, the negative space between these two forms reveals a Mandorla, the ancient Church's most prevalent symbol of the Incarnation, of Heaven and Earth coming together.
