St. John Paul II Academy
BRAND STRATEGY • DESIGN • WRITING • WEB DEVELOPMENT • EDUCATION
St. John Paul II Academy (JPII) is an independent K-12 school in south midtown Omaha. Formed in spring of 2023, we had only a few months before doors opened to establish a legitimate brand that captured the vigor and vitality of this unique community.
I designed a crest bursting with symbolism. Read about its meaning here.
While wanting to create a mark that is woven from signs and symbols, I had two guiding principles:
- I wanted students to be able to draw it from memory
- I wanted it to look sweet on a Nike quarter-zip
If you spend any time in “traditional” education communities, you’ll see a lot of schools that rely on the same motifs to signify their love of tradition. There’s nothing wrong with this, and it definitely works. But I felt determined to avoid these well-traveled paths.
Plus, JPII is a maverick among its peer schools in the classical, liberal arts world, because we embrace modernity instead of revile it. The challenge, then, was to communicate a fresh and inviting approach to an ancient tradition.
Our color strategy leads with a deep navy and a roguish red. There are plenty of schools around Omaha that use one color or the other — none that combine them. This combination feels quite ownable, without upsetting those who are looking for that “academic” vibe.
Typography is always a challenge, but we got lucky when David Sargent’s Platypi came to Google Fonts in summer 2024. This unique typeface looks like a “respectable” serif, incorporating some of those heritage elements important to the brand. But some of its unexpected curves feel related to the friendly, rounded serif movement that has been so popular. It really ties the room together.
Brand strategy and identity elements
Mountaineering is important to the ethos of the school. That might seem funny for a school in the Nebraska flatlands. But JPII is unique in its emphasis on ruggedness, grit and literally rising to a challenge. The school’s namesake, Pope John Paul II, famously loved the mountains. The school’s motto is Italian: Verso l’alto! To the heights!
I’m building a visual identity based around the idea of the school as a trailhead: the entry point to a lifelong ascent. With the help of guides and mentors, each student must complete their own climb — a journey that goes on and on, beyond graduation day.
If you’ve gone hiking in the mountains, you’ve seen stacks of stones along the wayside. These are called cairns.
They’re little guideposts or markers left by prior travelers, to mark the way toward the summit. JPII’s visual identity uses stacked layers to echo this idea. A classical education is a sustained encounter with the best that civilization has ever thought, discovered or written: these are our guideposts, left by prior travelers, on man’s search for the truth.
I built the school’s website, top to bottom, on Squarespace with more than a few hand-coded elements. A lot of thought went into the structure of the website: who uses the page most, and what information do they need?
A quote will go here from someone who can describe my work.
— Dr. Peter Fletcher, Headmaster
Postscript
During the process, I designed this little mark. It didn’t get selected, but I think it’s a banger so I’m keeping it around until I can use it for something.
