Three students on St. Charles Stairs - Purple Book

Living Our Brand

In This Section

A brand creates an opportunity for others to connect with Carroll College, because ultimately, a brand is an idea that lives in our mind. Many times, people assume that a brand is a logo or a set of colors or fonts.

In reality, it is so much more.

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Students Smiling

Our Brand

A brand is our story and the stories that get told about us. Together, these stories:

  • Create expectations
  • Make Carroll memorable
  • Connect you to people and groups
  • Strengthen our institution

Education is not the filling of a pail, but the lighting of a fire.

Attributed to Plutarch

For the Adventure Video
We are made for lives of adventure—each one of us playing our part in a grand story.
Three students on St. Charles Stairs - Purple Book

For the Adventure

We are made for lives of adventure—each one of us playing our part in a grand story. At Carroll, we guide each student to discover a transformative sense of calling and to pursue that calling with joy. A commitment to personal formation in the search for Truth is foundational to intellectual pursuit as we live and learn together. The Carroll experience is the beginning of a lifelong journey—for the adventure.

Our Brand Promise

Every brand is a promise. A great brand is a promise kept.

Carroll College celebrates the joy of living found in the Catholic faith and the extraordinary beauty of the American West. Through academic distinction and the Carroll experience, we guide students in personal formation in the search for Truth and a life of glorious adventure.

Horse and student

Our Brand Values

Our brand has a set of core values that show others who we are. These values are intended to unify our words and actions, building consistency in outward expressions of the Carroll brand. They should inspire our actions and words, and show what we stand for.

Together, and as illustrated by how we express them, these values reflect our unwavering and uniquely adventurous spirit.

In reality, it is so much more. A brand is our story, and the stories that get told about us. Together, these stories detail:

Strong Minds

Seeking understanding through intellectual pursuit

  • Continuous pursuit of wisdom; more than information or skills
  • Rigorous learning environment
  • Charitable discourse
  • Unity of knowledge
  • Experiential learning and professional opportunities
  • Lifelong learning

Great Hearts

Embracing friendship, community, and shared experience

  • Generous spirit; willing to learn and listen
  • Spirit of exploration and adventure
  • Cultivation of virtue
  • Culture of encounter and authentic friendship
  • Committed to the Carroll community

True Faith

Joyfully pursuing spiritual formation and the greater good

  • Joy, even amid struggle
  • The complementary nature of faith and reason
  • Personal growth
  • Consistency and clarity in affirming a meaningful life
  • Recognize the longing for the transcendent

Ready Hands

Seeking opportunities to give of oneself through leadership and service, in school and in life

  • Leadership through service
  • Seeking opportunities to utilize gifts and talents
  • Preparation for vocation and life
  • Commitment to the common good

​​Knowledge and virtue are the armor with which [this] College shall strive to equip students.

Founder John Patrick Carroll 1909

Fr. Marc with student

Good to Know

Using consistent language is crucial to a strong brand. If we don't distill our message down to its essential truths, others will begin to filter it out altogether.

OUR BRAND PERSONALITY

NOTE: This section is intended to guide both graphic designers and copywriters as they execute our brand. Thus, the language below ought not to be utilized in external-facing copy, but rather to guide marketers in their execution. By way of example, the section below includes an “Is/Is Not” section; in execution, however, we utilize the language of the Catholic Intellectual Tradition “Both/And.” The “Purple Book” provides a representative example.

As we tell the stories of Carroll College and communicate across a variety of platforms and in different ways, we create impressions and connections. People will draw conclusions about Carroll based on what we say and how we say it.

We have a great responsibility to build the reputation of the college by ensuring that our communication is coordinated, consistent, and strategic. Together, this unified language will result in a consistent image in the minds of others.

Female Student Smiling

Good To Know

Think of branding as a game of "connect the dots." It’s important that interaction with the Carroll brand at any level help inform a more authentic, impactful picture of who we are and why we exist.

Carroll College Is/Is Not

  • is PRESTIGIOUS, is not Haughty
  • is RIGOROUS, is not Rigid
  • is DRIVEN, is not Self-serving
  • is SUPPORTING, is not Compromising
  • is LEADING, is not Pretentious
  • is CATHOLIC, is not Exclusive
Campus Ministry Retreat

Both/And

In execution for outward-facing copy, we prefer to articulate the Catholic Intellectual Tradition’s use of "Both/And." Thus, we utilize phrases such as:

  • BOTH rigorous AND supportive
  • BOTH for learning AND for life
  • BOTH faith AND reason
  • BOTH mercy AND justice
  • BOTH compassion AND clarity
  • BOTH freedom AND discipline
  • BOTH joy AND suffering
  • BOTH Catholic AND welcoming
  • BOTH vocation AND enlightenment

Tone & Voice

What we sound like:

  • Challenging
  • Inspirational
  • Authentic
  • Joyful
  • Purposeful
  • Pioneering

Look & Feel

What we look like:

  • Grand
  • Beautiful
  • Warm
  • Stirring
  • Adventurous
  • Gritty + Modern
Nursing at Carroll College
These values shape our unique culture. We seek to model these values to reflect the heart of the Carroll College experience.
St Charles Hall - Feature

Aspirations

Words and descriptors that align with our mission:

  • Joy-filled
  • Welcoming
  • Diverse
  • Striving
  • Intentional
  • Transformative
  • Impactful

APPLYING THE BRAND

Our recruitment communications will be unified by a single, strategic application of the Carroll brand message: FOR THE ADVENTURE. This phrase combines two key ideas:

Students Walk on the Path in Fall
  1. All of life is a glorious adventure
  2. You were specifically made to play your unique part in this pursuit

As an application, Made for Adventure personalizes the master theme and encourages students to see Carroll as a place to guide and prepare them for their calling and in their search for Truth, the ultimate adventure. Additionally, Live the Adventure makes the theme actionable.

For undergraduate students, we explore the Carroll experience through the lens of adventure:

  • The challenge of our high academic standards
  • The risk of inquiry and opening oneself to dialogue
  • A spirit of exploration, both in and beyond the classroom
  • Seeking joy, even amid struggle
  • Seeking personal growth and spiritual formation

Aspects of the Carroll Experience

This overarching theme of “Made for Adventure” is intended to be extended and viewed through several lenses or aspects of the Carroll experience. To assist our stakeholders in imagining the ways in which adventure applies to our students’ lives and the members of our community, we provide the following brief descriptions:

ROTC Students Walking

Intellectual adventure:

  • The challenge and rigor associated with high academic standards in all disciplines
  • The delight and discovery of pursuing the truth
  • The freedom of inquiry in all academic disciplines
  • A spirit of exploration, both in and beyond the classroom
  • Expansion of the intellectual, imaginative, and social awareness of our students
  • The awakening of an enduring wonder for knowledge
  • The integration of knowledge made possible by the liberal arts
  • Impressive legacy of undergraduate student research and scholarly activity
  • Strong professional and pre-professional programs including a variety of allied, nursing, pre-law, and pre-professional programs
  • Sharing new knowledge and using it for good, whether through presenting/publishing research, recitation/performance, internship (knowledge you gain is not just for yourself/ shared journey)
  • Embedded “Sed Vitae” experience, requiring every student to engage hands-on learning through an internship, study abroad, service-learning, undergraduate research, or practicum opportunity
  • The exploration of complex, open-ended, loosely defined problems that defy simplistic, “textbook” solutions, and demand knowledge from multiple disciplines to navigate
  • The challenge of our high academic standards

Social adventure:

  • The joy of true friendship through running together after a high ideal, or Aristotle’s “transcendent third”
  • The risk and joy of authentic encounter and inquiry and opening oneself to dialogue
  • Being opened up through encounters outside of one’s own background
  • Engage our shared commitment to the common good
  • Explore Catholic social teaching and its implications for creating a more just world
  • To accompany and to be accompanied by others through the range of human experiences, including joys and sorrows
  • The building of flourishing community and culture

Spiritual adventure:

  • Diocesan Camp - Legendary Lodge

    Asking and pursuing the most enduring questions of human life, and the exploration of ethical questions that bring purpose to education

  • The cultivation of a depth of character
  • An earnest desire for personal and spiritual formation
  • Faith proposed, never imposed
  • A conviction that education closed to the transcendent, that does not explore questions of faith and God, is no education at all
  • Ultimate complementarity of faith and reason
  • A commitment “to present faithfully within its curriculum the magisterial teachings of the Catholic Church”
  • “While standing fast by the teaching of the Catholic Church, and avoiding a false conciliatory approach foreign to the true spirit of ecumenism, Carroll College welcomes in love and respect the full participation of other Christians and non-Christians in an ecumenical dialogue and in a truly humble and charitable joint venture in the common search for the Ultimate Truth and the Ultimate Good which is the final goal of all education.”

Recreational adventure

  • Outdoor recreation and adventure, including world-class mountain biking, backpacking, fly-fishing, downhill skiing, rock climbing, and so much more.
  • The struggle, risk, and reward of athletic endeavors and authentic competition

Imaginative and creative adventure

  • Appreciation for and pursuit of all that is beautiful
  • To create, either individually or with others, something drawing upon one’s own imaginative capacity
  • The awe produced when one encounters facets of humanity through artistic expression
  • Exploring the internationally known unique and vibrant arts community in and around Helena and Montana
  • Expanding our perspectives and empathy by telling and experiencing the stories of others through literature and performance.
  • The catharsis or emotional release of expressing and feeling emotions through creative endeavors
  • The integration of critical and creative thinking required for human flourishing

The heavens declare the glory of God; the skies proclaim the work of his hands.

—Psalm 19:1

Students Lab Smiling

Resources