A significant factor in establishing an institution’s visual identity is the use of fonts. To ensure consistency and unification with all communications, Colorado Mesa has established official brand fonts. The use of these fonts is strongly encouraged when creating projects for the University.
Trajan Family
Trajan is an interpretation of the inscriptional capitals from the Trajan columns in Rome. It is mainly used in magazines, advertising, and brochures. The font ties the University to its respect for history and its dedication to education and learning. Use this classic and straightforward font for all headlines and titles in communication material. Both the CMU master brand and the WCCC sub-brand use this font.
Trajan, Regular
Trajan, Bold
ITC Serif Gothic Family
TC Serif Gothic was designed to keep both readability and simplicity in mind. This font ties into the need to provide a bolder, younger, stronger look for the Mavericks Athletic sub-brand. For that reason, use ITC Serif Gothic for headlines and titles in athletic department communications.
ITC Serif Gothic, Heavy
Avenir Family
Like all great san serif fonts, Avenir was designed for a more modern look in typography. The designer wanted to make sure the font showcases the experience and stylistic developments of the twentieth century. The word Avenir itself means the future in French. All brands in the CMU brand architecture use Avenir as the body copy font.
Avenir, Roman
Avenir, Bold
Argus Family
The word Argus means vigilant, always watching guardian. Like Trajan, the style of the font is classic and simple. This font was selected to complement the other elements and features of the physical campus. Also, the font represents the University's dedication to providing a safe college experience by placing watchful guardians on the buildings to look after all the people that gather in its halls.
Argus, Bold
For many individuals, little thought goes into deciding which font to use for a project. People typically use personal favorites from a limited selection found on their personal computers. The result is a wide range of mismatched fonts on university flyers and documents across campus. Like color, fonts have the power to build brand awareness with the audience. The use of our established brand fonts looks professional and creates a consistent image for the University.
Try to avoid using free download fonts. These are often screen display fonts only and are not designed to work correctly when printing projects. They often do not include all the characters offered in the typeface and have the potential not to display correctly when PDFs are exported. There is also the potential that the font file could carry damaging computer viruses.
The best font file type to use is .OTF file. This stands for Open Type Fonts. An OTF font includes a screen and print font to create one file. Open Type Fonts also work on both Mac and PC computers.
The Marketing and Communications office legally cannot distribute fonts files to the campus community. Many times font foundry require personal incenses to use their font commercially. Each office, department or organization should purchase fonts for their unit. Below are links for the Font Shop website where you can purchase and download our brand fonts.
- Trajan Font Family (This font is available throw Adobe Fonts.)
- ITC Serif Gothic Family
- Avenir Font Family
- Argus Font Family
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