Themed Branding

While establishing and sponsoring the first gay-straight alliance at my Benedictine Catholic institution, I wanted to present a consistent brand image for the club, its communications, and its publicity materials. Knowing that formation of this sort of organization at a religious school poses challenges, the club’s image needed to assert respectability and alignment with the school’s values.

Students selected the name “Prism” for the group, connecting the imagery of light refracting into a rainbow with the biblical call to be “the light of the world.” The club logo prominently features the colors of the rainbow, with the yellow and green shades being the school’s official green and gold colors and forming the base, or foundation, of the logo. The negative space in the center of the logo pays tribute to the pink-triangle indicia historically applied to, and then reappropriated by, the queer community.

From that logo, Prism’s image grew.

These slides help guide facilitators through the intensive, three-hour Safe Zone sensitivity training program. The deck provides visual cues for discussion, visual organizers and representations to clarify concepts for participants, and emphasis for significant concepts or quotes. Additionally, icons in the top-right corner of slides indicate the current location in the participant handouts (see below) to help keep everyone literally on the same page. I also created the Facilitator’s Checklist for guidance on preparing and presenting the training materials.

While the concept of Safe Zone training existed long before this presentation, and though much of the content comes from other open-access resources, to the best of my knowledge, this is the only Safe Zone training presentation to directly address the intersectionality of religious belief and LGBTQ+ identity, a critical component for the intended audience.