MC Brand & Logos

Brand & Logo Standards

Why a Brand is Important

We have created a unified, positive and distinct brand for Merced College that effectively  communicates the College’s identity, reputation and values as one of the leading educational institutions of higher learning in the region. Through the proper and consistent placement of the Merced College logo and its affiliated designs, we have the opportunity to communicate to the world messages about what our College stands for. Our visual identity reflects more than artistic designs and thoughtful typestyles; it speaks volumes about our values and image.

Thank you for being part of efforts to develop and communicate our brand. You can find the logo files below, but please read through our branding guidelines first.

Color

Using these primary brand colors clearly connects your program and message to Merced College, building recognition and trust with your audiences.

Primary Colors

These should be the primary colors on everything. The logo should only ever appear in these colors. These colors should make up about 90% of the color usage on any design. Our Blue is our main color PMS 281 and our Gold is the accent color.

  • Use the recommended values below for CMYK, HEX, and RGB color spaces to achieve the most desirable gold across print and digital platforms.
  • No values other than those listed on this page may be used. Tints and shades of these colors should not be used.
    MC Blue
    PMS 281
    R 0/G 32/B 92
    C 100/M 78/Y 0/K 57
    HEX #00205C    		 MC Gold
    PMS 1245
    R 195/G 143/B 0
    C 2/M 31/Y 98/K 16
    HEX #C38F00

Tints & Shades

These tints and shades are available to provide contrast where appropriate. These should also be used sparingly.

PMS 282
CMYK 100 72 0 73
HEX #001743		 PMS 280
CMYK 100 85 0 39
HEX #002976		 PMS 1235
CMYK 0 25 94 0
HEX #F5B400
PMS 287
CMYK 100 79 0 37
HEX #00328F		 PMS 286
CMYK 100 80 0 12
HEX #003BA9		 PMS 1225
CMYK 0 16 80 0
HEX #F5C749

Secondary Colors

These secondary colors can be used very sparingly to complement our main colors or to differentiate objects like charts or graphs. They should never take up more than 10% of a design.

PMS 285
R 15 / G 97 / B 216
C 90 / M 47 / Y 0 / K 0
HEX #0F61D8		 PMS 649
R 213 / G 229 / B 232
C 15 / M 4 / Y 0 / K 0
HEX #D5E5E8		 PMS 2255
R 157 / G 199 / B 145
C 45 / M 0 / Y 51 / K 0
HEX #9DC791		 PMS Warm Red
R 237 / G 99 / B 72
C 0 / M 83 / Y 81 / K 0
HEX #ED6348

Neutral Colors

These tertiary colors can be used as neutral colors in certain compositions.

Black
PMS Black 6
CMYK 78 70 60 75
HEX #181B21		 Cool Gray
PMS Cool Gray 8
CMYK 50 41 41 5
HEX #888888		 Tan
PMS 7527
CMYK 3 5 14 0
HEX #F7F3EB		 Light Gray
PMS Cool Gray 1
CMYK 5 4 4 0
HEX #EEEEEE

Color Usage

This pie chart, while not scientific, provides a helpful way to understand how much of each color to use in your design.

Blue & Gold Should be used most frequently and make up the majority of color on any design. The shades and tints are meant to provide contrast and add a bit of variety to less formal designs. The secondary colors are meant for emphasis in very small doses. Neutrals can be used to fill certain areas or separate content.Don’t forget to leave plenty of white space in designs to prevent the viewer from being overwhelmed.

Typefaces & Fonts

Type is the heart of any brand. To ensure the cohesiveness of our branding stick with these officially selected typefaces.

Montserrat

Montserrat is a thick heavy font mainly used as a headline or display text on promotional materials.

Montserrat typeface example text

Spectral

Spectral is a classy looking serif font for when you need to give a design an extra bit of class and elegance. Use the bold font for headlines. Use it for body copy on more official documents for added gravitas.

spectral typeface example text

Open Sans

Open Sans is a clean, professional and easily acquired font that contains several different weights and italics for use in any situation. This is a main typeface that can be used for body in any material.

open sans typeface example text

Mission Gothic

Mission Gothic is a nice, condensed font with a bit more character than open sans. It’s sparingly used as a simple accent font in certain situations. It is also the font approved for use in our sub-identities. Please contact us if you would like to use this font.

mission gothic typeface example text

Athletic Typefaces

Obvia

Obvia is our main athletic typeface. It comes in many weights and widths. It works well for headlines and body copy alike.

obvia typeface example text

Logos

The college logo is the core of Merced College's visual identity and must be used in all communications and promotional materials.

Academic Branding

Explore our portal of all the Academic Logos

Download Academic Logos
Download Sub-identities

Spirit Branding

Visit our Spirit Branding portal to get the most up to date versions of our logos for spirit branding and athletics.

Read the Spirit Brand Guidelines
Download Spirit Branding Logos

Logo Standards

Whenever possible, all materials and communications should be created using the Primary logo in full color.  In situations where the Primary logo will not fit because of size constraints, the Secondary logo may be used with preference on using the full color version. View the guidance below on when it is permitted to not use the full color logos and the do’s & don’ts of how to use the logo properly.

One Color & Reversed

While we encourage widespread use of the full-color College logo, we do acknowledge that there are times that one color is your only option. The guidance is to use only white or blue. Reversed logos are meant to be used where the contrast between the logo and the background is optimal such as a blue background.

Official College Seal

Merced College sealThe seal signifies the academic character of the College and is appropriately used in support of official College policies, decisions, ceremonies or other formal actions as an academic institution. To maintain its integrity, the seal may not be used for informal, routine or promotional materials or for materials not directly related to academic purposes without written permission. The seal, in full color or line art, is restricted to, but not required on, the following:

  • The Office of the President;
  • College-level formal and official documents such as diplomas, academic awards and certificates, transcripts, resolutions and Commencement invitations, College reports

For questions or to submit a request for exception review, please contact the Office of External Relations at [email protected].

Logo Do’s & Don’ts

Clear Space

Maintain clear space around logo equal to height of the “C” in the word “College”

Minimum Size

In order to ensure legibility, the logo must not appear smaller than the following dimensions.

  • 8 point type
  • no less than 150 pixels width

Need help with logos?