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Logo Elements

Logo Use

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Stationery

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Logo Elements

The Icon
"When used consistently and proudly"—those are the words to remember. The University of Missouri-Columbia has one logo. It consists of the letters MU stacked within a stylized shield, the name typeset in Janson Text, and specific ink colors. Together, these elements present a strong, balanced visual identity to internal and external audiences.

The icon is to be used as the logo of all schools, colleges, offices, programs and other units of the University. It should be used in an approved form in all external communications. It is part of the design of the official University stationery. No other logo should be substituted for it or used with it.

Colors
The official colors are black and MU Gold, which can be printed or approximated in several ways.

• Gold
  • MU Gold is available from Printing Services as a custom-mixed ink.
    
  • When four-color process inks are available, you can produce MU Gold by printing 25M/90Y/5K.
  • When neither of the above options is available, you can closely approximate MU Gold by using PMS 124.
  • The Web equivalent of MU Gold is FFCC33.
  • To create MU Gold using RGB (red, green, blue) settings, use R=255, G=204, B=051.
• Black
  • When four-color process inks are available, you can produce a rich black by printing 60C/50M/40Y/100K.
  • When a single ink is available, you can produce black by printing 100K.

Acceptable Uses

• As a general principle, when black and MU Gold are available, the initials in the logo should be displayed in MU Gold and the shield in black.
  
• You also may use MU Gold as a background color, with the logo shield shown in black and the initials reversed in white.
  
• If MU Gold is not available and you are printing on white paper stock (or using a white background on a Web site), you may show the shield in black (or darkest color) and leave the initials in the paper (background) color.
• If MU Gold is not available and you are printing on colored paper stock (or using a colored background on a Web site), you may show the shield in black (or darkest color) and leave the initials in the paper (background) color.
  
• If MU Gold is not available and you are printing a background color on white or light paper stock, you should print the shield in black (or darkest color) and may reverse the initials, leaving them in the paper color.
  
• If the printed background color (or Web site background color) is black or so dark that the shape of the shield is not clearly discernible, differentiate the shield from the background by using a thin (1-point or thinner) white outline around the shield.
  

Signatures
These examples will give you guidelines for placement and spacing of the logo and accompanying type for printed materials such as classified ads, bumper stickers or banners. The same principles of proportion and design apply for Web site use. You should always use the official typeface, Janson Text, with the MU logo.

Typefaces
Preferred typefaces for consistency in print design are in the type families Janson and Univers. We also recommend these typefaces for other external and internal publications. MU’s admissions program uses Janson for most headlines and body copy and Univers for secondary headlines, sidebars and blurbs. You can purchase these fonts at www.adobe.com.

Tips: In general, when using the two main typefaces together, which is often the case, use Janson for body copy and Univers for subheads, blurbs, sidebars and other typographic accents. Univers also is useful for type that appears in a color other than black.

Alternate Typefaces
Although you should use Janson and Univers for external publications, Palatino, a serif face, and Helvetica, a sans-serif face, are issued with most desktop computer systems. We recommend 11-point Palatino for the body of letters on MU stationery. When Univers is unavailable, we suggest Helvetica as a substitute. If Janson and Palatino are not available, use Times as a substitute.

Tips: Set large blocks of type no more than 11/2 lowercase alphabets wide; watch legibility of reverses; contrast sizes when using two styles. You can separate paragraphs with additional line spacing. In general, use 9- or 10-point type for large areas of text. The suggested leading for setting the text in MU publications is 3 points above the type size (example: 9 on 12). When designing, try to use no more than three or four type sizes in the same document. To accommodate different levels of emphasis in the text or in headlines, use different weights or italics in the approved type families.

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