“Your Best Face Forward”: The Importance of Logos That Define Our School

More Than A Convenient Piece of Art
A logo. Almost every organization you can think of has one. To us, the logo means more than just being a convenient piece of art to place on letterheads and sports jerseys. It is the visual definition of our school and serves the purpose of communicating who we are to our student body and surrounding community. At Eastern Christian School, we ran into this dilemma with our academic and athletic logos recently. The images that represented our school were not, in our minds, accurate reflections of what we felt are ECS’s strengths and beliefs, so we set out to redesign them.

Putting Feet to Our Vision
At ECS, we strive to cultivate daily an attitude of excellence in our students, whether in their schoolwork, extracurricular events or spiritual growth. We wanted a logo that reflected this attitude by having a fresh, clean design that was consistent across the board. The current images we were using did not have any set image guidelines and, as a result, each one was a little bit different which lead to confusion and inconsistency. We also wanted our school mascot, the eagle, to be included in both designs. With these two frameworks in mind, the designing process began!

What Makes A Great Logo?
Oftentimes, the strongest logo designs are simple and timeless. Some of the best advice we received was to try to design a logo with simple, yet strong themes and to focus on one idea that spoke to the key personality of our school. We took this advice to heart and figured out that the more complex our design was, that faster it would go out of style, and that having a clear design would also help us focus on what exactly our message is.

The importance of color in logos cannot be understated. Our school colors are dark blue and gold, and we chose these colors to represent Eastern Christian School because the values associated with them are ones that we feel describe ECS perfectly. Dark blue symbolizes trust, loyalty, wisdom, confidence, faith, truth and heaven; while gold is associated with illumination and wisdom.

Choosing Symbols That Communicate Our Message
Throughout the history of the church, the eagle has symbolized the resurrection, or ascension, of Christ, soaring upward. An intimidating bird of prey, the eagle is also associated with a sense of power and majesty. These are only a few of the reasons we at Eastern Christian School chose the eagle as our mascot.

We also wanted to include a shield in our design. Shields have been used throughout history to protect and defend from the enemy’s attacks. At ECS, we place a high emphasis on our student’s spiritual education believe that having a shield in our logo reinforces the idea that we must take up the “shield of faith” (Eph. 6:16) so that we can better stand against our spiritual enemy, the devil.

The Final Products
Compiling all of these design elements, we at Eastern Christian School believe we have two new logos that accurately reflect our school’s goals and beliefs.

Learn More About ECS
Established in 1892, Eastern Christian School is a private christian school located on 3 NJ campuses in Midland Park, Wyckoff, and North Haledon. Our mission is to provide students with a challenging education that encourages them to develop academically, physically and spiritually. Call us today at 973-427-4013 for more information. We look forward to hearing from you!