We encourage you to browse the page below for details about how we talk about ourselves and for information on our school’s name and identity, logos, colors, and typography. This page should give you an overview of how our brand reflects Olin’s strategic plan.

We have also elected to elevate our strategic pillar of excellence, Values Based, Data Driven®, as a brand identifier that’s unique to Olin. This is our point of differentiation—and we have registered the phrase in an ownable way in order to elevate and make it ours exclusively. See our one-page guideline for how to use this phrase in media applications.

We encourage you to view the entire set of brand guidelines. And you can download useful tools—logos, PowerPoint templates, and more—on the Downloads page.

To begin, Olin’s unified brand positioning will benefit our community by:

  • Articulating an accurate and appealing value proposition.
  • Strengthening the position of our full-time MBA program and other programs.
  • Positioning the school as a leader in the field of business education, incorporating multiple degree programs as one brand.
  • Reaching and attracting right-fit students, faculty, and staff.
  • Aligning with the Washington University master brand.

Representing the strategic plan

Our brand is how we talk about the elements of our strategic plan, our vision, our mission, our values, and our strategic priorities. We put all this together into a unique statement that boldly declares who we are and how we’re different from other top business schools:

“As a premier educator of business professionals, Olin Business School champions better decision-making by preparing and coaching a new academy of leaders who will change the world, for good.”

We do this through our pillars of excellence, the elements that drive our approach to preparing leaders:

  • Values Based, Data Driven®
  • Globally Outlook
  • Experiential
  • Entrepreneurial Spirit

This page is an overview of the elements of Olin’s brand. To review the entire set of Olin’s brand guidelines, download them here.

Relationship to master brand

The university is often the front door to the business school, so it’s important that the two entities align. Our story starts with the core idea of the master brand, but extends that idea in a relevant and meaningful way.

WashU Master Brand: “We are a community where people matter and serious work is done.”

The WashU Olin Brand: “We champion better decision-making among leaders who will change the world, for good.”

Flexing Olin’s brand

Our brand is somewhat sophisticated when it’s delivered at full strength. But it can be flexible, too. Informative emails to students, donors, or university partners may require very little “formal branding” beyond the proper colors, fonts, or logos. On the other end of the scale, recruiting materials, advertisements for the school, or other external-facing communications may require heavy consideration of our look, typography, and voice.

As always, hard-and-fast rules are difficult to establish. We’re happy in Marketing & Communications to help answer questions. Speak to your brand manager or email olin-marcomm@email.wustl.edu.

Identity

Our name and our logos represent us at the highest level, and they’re critical to who we are as a brand. These elements are, and should always be, the most consistent components of our communications. And our full name is long: eight words. Fifty-five characters. So we’ve developed a system that continues to build equity with the master brand but minimizes our dependence on the lengthy formal name.

  • Formal name: Washington University in St. Louis Olin Business School
  • First mention: Washington University’s Olin Business School
  • Acceptable second reference: Olin Business School; Olin; the business school
  • Other references: WashU degree; WashU MBA; WashU Executive MBA
  • But not: Olin degree; Olin MBA; Olin Executive MBA

Students earn a WashU MBA (a product) at Olin Business School (a place).  

Logo and typography

Review the Downloads page for more information about and access to versions of Olin’s logo.

As far as typography is concerned, our words carry weight, and so does our typography. In fact, it’s one of the most recognizable aspects of the Olin brand. Like our logos and color palette, typography can become a recognizable brand element when it’s used consistently. For Olin materials, we use Source Sans Pro from the WashU master brand, and Gloucester OS MT Pro, which has been specifically introduced for Olin.

You can visit the WashU Public Affairs website to download Source Sans Pro and the university’s other preferred typefaces. We encourage you to consult your supervisor or Olin IT for access to Gloucester OS MT Pro if you need it in your communication. See the compete brand guidelines for more details about how they are used.

Note that WashU’s Libre Baskerville is an acceptable substitute for Gloucester and is also available for download from the Public Affairs site. More branded pieces developed by Marketing & Communications will use Gloucester, but less branded pieces can use Libre Baskerville. 

Color palette

Our color palette is strongly tied to that of the WashU master brand. It leads with WashU red and green as the primary colors, balanced by a palette of neutral grays and bright accent colors. Use our color formulas when creating communications. These values have been carefully selected for consistency across all types of media.

Photography

Photography plays an important role in our brand communications because it tells our story visually. Although our words are compelling, images offer powerful proof of what we say. For this reason, photography should be carefully selected to match our messaging, and it should always feel authentically like WashU Olin. We have more information on this page, dedicated to photos and our brand.