In case you missed last Tuesday’s Afterdark Chapel or any of the signage around campus, the theme for this year’s Cook Missions Conference (MC) is “Children of Light,” derived from Romans 8:14-21. Caroline Diaz, a graphic designer for SMU, was in charge of the branding and logo content for this year’s MC. The Mission’s Conference team provided Caroline with the verse and name; in turn, she configured the logo, the type and font and the color palette. The preliminary process, as explained by Diaz, was spending time in the Word.
“I wanted to pull a lot from the verses. Meditating on it gave me an idea for the structure, which reflected the Gospel message for me,” she said. “There was creation, something that was dead to sin and decaying, but through Jesus, we can be adopted into God’s kingdom. That’s what the verse felt like. That spoke most specifically to the color palette…The color palette has a lot to do with contrast. There are the deep blues and the bright yellow. ”
Additionally, Diaz sourced abstract imagery from the verse, “There’s a part of the verse that talks about adoption to sonship, and with the logo specifically, I envisioned the crown of thorns and how that was being passed on to us.”
Drawing inspiration from other forms of media, fire was a prominent motif in Diaz’s process.
“We started thinking about flames and fire, and conceptually, what do those feel like?” she said. “Specifically for fire, there can be crazy and dangerous fire, but there can also be tame and useful fire. That was the type of thing we were gravitating towards. The font was derived from the idea of a candle flame, the shape of that being mimicked in the shape of the letters.”
Diaz invites the student body to partake in this Missions Conference with an enthusiastic heart to hear God.
“I love that Missions Conference this year is rooted around finding your identity and knowing your identity before you’re sent out and shown where to use your gifts,” Diaz said, “I have felt that for myself, and it helped me understand what I know about my identity. I have the desire and hope that other students feel that in this conference and get affirmation about how they can be used by God.. For me specifically, I wouldn’t say I’m a really loud person, but having the ability to communicate in a way that’s not with words is so unique.”
Going into this conference, Diaz suggests keeping four words in mind: “identity,” “sonship,” “children,” and “father.”
