The Culver Community Schools Corporation formally unveiled its new logo family during Monday’s school board meeting, they even handed out some large back patches for vest of their logo so people could sew them on. The branding effort was coordinated by a group of volunteers, including school staff members and parents, working on the marketing component of the corporation’s strategic plan.
They raised money for the project through a GoFundMe campaign that so far has collected over $6,800. Marketing team member Shelly Schrimsher says the campaign reached a wide variety of people. “The people that did donate are from all different demographics from this community,” she says. “There are alumni people. There are people that work here. There’s also academy people. There’s also people that live in Chicago. I have no idea why; I mean, I don’t know what their connection is. And there’s lake people also, so that was a really great thing to see.”
With the money raised, the team contracted with VIP Branding to design the logo family. The new brand contains a total of seven different logos the corporation can use for different situations. Middle/High School principal and logo team member Brett Berndt says three of the logos were presented to corporation staff members, along with the school board, who were then asked to choose one to serve as the primary logo, “Seventy-two staff members responded to it. I don’t know where we’re at; we’re probably at a little over 100, I would imagine, in the corporation, so about 70, 75 percent of the people responded that way. And it was actually a pretty close race between a couple of the logos, and the main logo that the staff felt was the shield. They thought the shield would represent us the best, so that’s what we decided today when we met that that’s obviously what the staff wanted, so that’s the main thing we’re going to go with.”
The logo they chose is an image of a shield backed by two swords. In front of the shield are the words “Culver Cavs.”
Now the next step is to buy marketing materials like signs, banners, and other products with the new logos. For that effort, the GoFundMe campaign is staying open to raise additional money.
The branding effort is seen as a way for the corporation to control its image and potentially attract more families, at a time when per-student funding from the state has dropped.
The school board voted unanimously to accept the logo family during Monday’s meeting.
