STILL SUCCEEDING
As Dallas Theological Seminary approached its 100th anniversary, its team began to look back on a century of success—and look ahead toward what they hoped to be another century of the same. When considering possible steps toward this kind of future, the seminary saw an opportunity to refresh its legacy brand to ensure it reflected the DTS story. So, the Big team dove into our research-driven branding process with DTS.
Discover
To learn about the seminary, we interviewed many students, faculty and staff members, donors and alumni. We also reviewed over 1,000 responses to an online survey from these same groups of people. Additionally, the organization’s research department provided useful information, which we were happy to study and factor into our solutions.
Develop
Our research and collaboration with the DTS team revealed the brand’s core values: trust in God’s Word, depend on the Lord, love others above ourselves, pursue excellence in everything, serve our students everywhere and strengthen the church worldwide. We created visuals rooted in these findings and worked closely with the DTS team to develop messaging. Our team implemented feedback from many staff members—which is something our process welcomes. We deeply value the client’s opinion on the direction their brand is heading toward, so we intentionally provide opportunities to weigh in on each idea.
Deliver
Ultimately, we provided DTS with a robust brand toolkit—including a new logo, in-depth messaging and an updated color palette. Because the brand went through an evolution rather than a revolution, it retained many of its original elements such as its tagline, “Teach Truth. Love Well.” With a rich history, this phrase conveys the seminary’s core attributes. We leveraged the refreshed brand elements to design a secondary 100th-anniversary mark as a natural brand expansion. We also collaborated with DTS to create an extensive brand continuity guide that clearly defined its brand architecture, specifically how its brands and sub-brands work together. Dallas Theological Seminary is a strong, well-respected institution—and now its brand undoubtedly reflects its reputation.
Thanks to Big’s expertise and commitment to embracing our mission, we have a logo that represents our brand and its vision, inspiring and uniting our institution in our purpose.
Dawn Etzel, Executive Director
If you need a creative partner to help you rethink your brand strategy and identity, think ‘Big.’ We did and we’re delighted with the results.
Kraig McNutt, Executive Director of Marketing & Communications