By Vince Sell (BS 13)
A New Grace Logo
A year ago, two of my colleagues and I left Grace College on a road trip to Columbus, Ohio. The purpose of our trip was to present our new brand messaging and logo to the board of trustees. Madison Maxwell would present our new messaging, “Created for More,” and I would present our new logo. It was an important day for us. Hundreds of hours of preparation had gone into creating the new messaging and logo. I had been working on the new logo for more than a year and a half.
The logo was approved by the board that day and has since won the approval of many others, as well as a Gold Award by the Educational Advertising Awards for logo design. I’m still blown away by how well the logo was received. I have often paused in awe that God has used me to create something so important for an institution that points people to Christ and equips them to make Him known in all of the world.
When I think about how the logo came to be, I can’t help but think about my own journey. I can only say I am here by God’s divine intervention. How does the son of a small-town pastor from upstate New York end up in North Central Indiana at a small college like Grace?
I have worked in graphic design since 2011. Throughout my 14 years as a graphic designer, I have learned many things. One is that a brand’s true identity comes from how people experience it. It is not just how we describe it. If you ask anyone what makes Grace College different, you will probably hear one answer repetitively: community. Put another way, it is the people who make Grace so wonderful. That is the experience I had at Grace. I also believe it’s how God developed my skill set to be able to redesign the logo for the school I love so much.
I would like to take you on a journey. I would like to walk you through some of my experiences at Grace, but more importantly, introduce you to people who have impacted me in how they expressed the true community of Grace. You might know many of these people if you have spent time at Grace yourself, or they might have had an influence on your life. Maybe you had an influence on theirs.
Before visiting Grace College for the first time, I was growing in my faith. The year of my first visit was the first time I had shared my faith with a friend. It didn’t go very well. Let’s just say, it wasn’t presented with character, competence, and service, but the Lord was working in my heart in a new way.
The main reasons I was interested in Grace College at the time were: A) I was looking for a small conservative Christian College, B) that had a graphic design program, and C) where I could play college soccer.
First Impressions and Making Connections
I took my first visit to Grace over fall break in 2008, so the campus was empty. It was cold and dreary, the time of year after the beautiful fall colors had faded. The kind of cold where the only thing you can do to warm up a little on a walk across campus is to duck and weave between buildings. If you didn’t do this as a Grace student, you were missing out.
I visited campus with my dad, Phillip Sell. We had no idea where to go, but we finally found Mount Memorial. Collette Olson was working at the visitor center that day, in my mind, though I could be wrong.
She walked me over to the GHAWC and gave us a quick tour of the building. At that time, the GREC was a fieldhouse, a workout room, and coaches’ offices.
She introduced me to Matt Hotchkin and Dan McNamara, coaches of the men’s soccer team, for a 30-minute meeting. Besides our love for soccer, we had one more connection point. My dad had played college soccer at Pillsbury Baptist Bible College in Owatonna, Minnesota in the 80s. Pillsbury played Northland, where Hotchkin and McNamara coached before coming to Grace. Hotchkin and McNamara passed us to our tour guide, Matt Rupple, who took us around campus on that cold day.
I remember seeing only one other person who looked like a student on campus that day. During the tour, we peeked into a building here and there. We didn’t visit Beta Hall. Indiana Hall was the gem of campus at the time. Rupple took us to the MOCC, where the admissions trick of the day was to put the visitor’s name on the new electronic scoreboard.
We visited the library, where I met Rhoda Palmer. She asked where I was from, and get this, she had lived just 30 minutes from my hometown in upstate New York. I had only been on this campus for less than an hour, and I was already making connections.
Matt also took us to the top of the Rodeheaver hill and pointed through the trees to show us Winona Lake. It was not the sunset photos you expect on a cold fall day. He told us about the connection between Westy, Winona Lake, Billy Graham, and Billy Sunday. Fun fact: My first apartment after college was on Sunday Lane with Grace grads Henry Crans and Brandon Heim.
Fast forward to February 2009, that one month of the year we always get a late snowstorm. It snowed then, too. I came back to campus with my dad and sister Meredith for Grace’s Presidential Scholarship Competition. We came out early so I could sit in a class, practice with the soccer team, and stay in the dorm.
Zac Hess gave me my second tour. We saw Beta Hall, and I met Jeremy Smith. Unlike last time, campus was bustling with activity.
I attended J.D. Wood’s Introduction to Design class. My first class in Mount Memorial, where I would spend most of my academic time at Grace. One of the first people I met at that class was Carrie (Bruns) Hansen, who happened to have lived near me in New York. She introduced me to Dan Ng, also from New York, who would later become my ride home on a number of occasions.
Friday night was the presidential banquet. That is when I learned colleges have presidents. I don’t remember a thing that was said, but I’m sure character, competence, and service were mentioned because Dr. Ronald E. Manahan was president at the time. Dr. Tiberius Rata was the faculty at our table that night. Little did I know he would later officiate my wedding, and I would name our third child Tiberius in honor of him.
The following day was an interview. Chad Briscoe was one of my interviewers. He asked two questions that sounded exactly the same. I was confused, but I realized that I had been bamboozled by the duality of the name Grace. Are we talking about Grace College or God’s grace? I remember four other people I met that day: a student ambassador I would later work with as a colleague at Grace, Cassie (Patterson) McNulty, two of my best friends from college, Andrew Rupp and Nathan Zuercher, and Ashlyn Fawley.
On the ride back home, I got into an awful argument with my dad. When we arrived home, a 12-hour car ride, we were both in tears. I would later write about this argument in my effective writing class with the late Dr. Paulette Sauders my freshman year.
It was the only A I got in that class. Most of my papers were filled with her notorious red ink, but she liked how personal I allowed my writing to be. We read a short story in that class, “For Esmé — with Love and Squalor” by J. D. Salinger. It was a delightful little piece. 11 years later, I would give my first daughter the middle name Esme in honor of Sauders.
A few weeks after PSC, I came home from work, and my mother was in tears. She had just received a phone call from a university offering me a full-tuition scholarship. I hadn’t told anyone at that point, but I had already decided I was going to Grace. I had to break the news to my mom that I wouldn’t be accepting the full-tuition scholarship to the other school.
I spent that summer working at McDonald’s, saving money, and dreaming about what my time in college would be like. I had been promoted to manager the year before. Shirt, tie, and my red Grace College pen were my daily work apparel. I didn’t know it then, but I was growing in competence and character. I was learning that people like being managed by those who care about them, a skill I would later use as a growth group leader (GGL) and resident assistant (RA).
The week before leaving for college, I pulled a double shift, working 65 hours in one week. Pre-season for soccer at Grace started the next week.
Life at Grace
Three weeks later, I had started school and was diagnosed with the H1N1 virus, or swine flu. I was the first person quarantined at Grace before quarantine was part of our daily vocabulary. A campus email was sent letting everyone know someone had contracted the virus.
Back in my dorm, Beta, the dorm I chose to live in, my hallmates were worried. My roommate, Justin Blackburn, had known I was sick, but all they knew was that I was missing. No one knew where I was. Jon McDillion and AJ Zimmerman led a local expedition to find me with no avail. I was put up in the Ramada, where I met Aaron Crabtree for the first time.
The 2009-2010 school year was impactful to me. I was overwhelmed by the opportunities to grow spiritually on campus. My RA, A.J. Schemmer, challenged us to be “all in” in our faith. My GGL, Andrew Husen, became one of my closest friends and mentors. I found a rough and tumble family on the men’s soccer team with David Pollard, Michael Sauers, and Dan Smith. I found a church, Community Grace, where I connected with people from across generations (many of whom were Grace grads). I soaked up Dr. Roger Stichter’s pre-class devotions in Principles of Accounting. I was in a new part of the world, but I was making friends left and right.
While at Grace, I took some amazing classes with incredible professors. I took Music Appreciation with Dr. Patrick Kavanaugh, one of the toughest classes I took besides Intermediate Accounting. I took two Dr. George Slaughter classes and learned it is easy to teach, easier to learn, and more difficult to do. I enjoyed my fine arts classes with Timothy W. Young. I attribute my knowledge of color and value to his classes. I had decided to major in graphic design. I made sure to take Principles and Practices of Prayer with Dr. Roger Peugh.
Student employment gave me a whole new level of education (as well as spending money). I was hired as a student mentor in 2010, where I worked with Janelle Ditmer and Ashley House. That job gave me some great friends, like Andrew Hartje and Chris Merrick. I lived in Beta for three years (Yes, it is good), and so did my best man in my wedding, Brock Rhodes. I was a GGL one year and an RA the next under Peter Wolff’s leadership as resident director. Gershom Tadesse was one of my residents that year.
If you can’t tell already, Grace was a great place for me. It taught me many things. I expected to get an education when I went to college, but I didn’t expect to grow mentally or spiritually half as much as I did. I made great friends, but what is a college degree if it doesn’t help you get employed after graduation?
Student to Professional
In the fall of 2011, I met with my advisor, Dr. Kim Reiff, to report on my summer internship at the Cooperstown Bat Company. I learned from Brett Pikarsky, the lead designer, who laid out logos and text to be laser-engraved into baseball bats. After I showed Reiff what I had been working on all summer, she was very impressed.
She told me I needed to contact Dave Grout at BrandPoet, the marketing agency Grace had hired at the time. I interviewed with Grout for an internship position, and I thought it was a dud. He told me he would hire me on the basis that Reiff had recommended me. I was thankful.
I started working as an intern in January 2012. I kept pace with my work and impressed Dave. After I graduated in December, a year later (thank you, 3-year program), Dave hired me full-time.
I walked with my degree in May 2013, in the last cohort to have their diplomas signed by Manahan.
Working at BrandPoet from 2013-2016 greatly changed me and shaped my life. I rubbed shoulders with professionals in my field, like Kevin Sterner, the owner, who embraced the importance of storytelling in advertising and helped make it central to the Grace brand.
Working at BrandPoet introduced me to professionals like Christina Herschberger, Justin Farrell, Genevieve (Benson) Stoll, Stephanie (Witte) Lozano, Steve Breeden, and many others. Kerith Ackley-Jelinek taught me the importance of structure, timelines, and systems. Graphic designers like Dave Carey and Aaron Winey modeled attention to detail, their love of typography, and their passion for design, which rubbed off on me. I got to work on a creative team with people who could make incredible videos (Drew Varvel), as well as people who were masters of many trades (Matt Frazier).
I had the opportunity to be creative in a professional setting with the safeguard of being in a creativity-minded company.
One thing Kevin Sterner told me that has always stuck with me is, “You spend a lot of your younger years trying to make as much money as you can, and then you get to a point where you realize the more important thing is who you work with and what you are working on.” I have always tried to follow that mantra and keep my focus on who I work with and the mission behind what I do.
I am blown away when I look back and see God in every moment of my story of grace. It is amazing to see the little connections and how God has prepared me to do the work I get to do today. I am thankful for my boss, Matt Metzger, and his confidence in me, and for the team I get to work with everyday: Crystal White, Rick Nier, Madison (Cowman) Maxwell, Chinges Sabol, Emma (Lehman) Wright, Troy Phillips, and Natalie Gaerte, Anna Porritt without whom I could never have done this.
More Than a Logo: The People Behind the Brand
This is my story about how I came to design the Grace College logo. It has nothing to do with me but everything to do with people and the connections I made on the way that God prepared beforehand (Ephesians 2:10). He is the ultimate designer. He placed all of the people in my path as guides, and they have shaped this new logo through their indelible influence on my life.
Our brand isn’t a logo, but it is the connections made in and around Grace. It is the amazing Christ-centered community that rallies around the truth that we are created in the image of God to bring Him glory. It isn’t the lake that looks amazing at dusk 100 days of the year, that you can walk across on frozen days. It is the One who shaped the lake through the motions of time and “separated the waters that were under the expanse from the waters that were above the expanse.” (Genesis 1:7)
It isn’t about an exact shade of red, but every shade of red from the blood of Jesus, in which the grace of God comes. The grace we need for our sinful souls so they can be washed white as snow.
The name every other Christian school wishes it had because it was God’s design from the very beginning.
Read more stories about our Christian community.
