Clerc Center announces new logo, website

When people in the deaf community see a hand form a wide “G” in front of the temple and pull it backward, they instantly recognize the name sign for Gallaudet University. 

The Gallaudet University logo, adopted in 2011, incorporates this imagery. More broadly, the university’s visual identity – its name and the buff-colored graphic above it – represents hope and trust for millions around the world. For 160 years, Gallaudet has been a beacon for visual learning, visual language, social justice, human rights, and self-determination for deaf, deafblind, deaf-disabled, and hard of hearing people.

This week, the Laurent Clerc National Deaf Education Center launched its new, distinct visual identity that celebrates Thomas Hopkins Gallaudet’s most influential partner: Laurent Clerc. Clerc Center now has a bilingual logo that incorporates the famed teacher Laurent Clerc’s name sign, in the same spirit that one can recognize Rev. Dr. Thomas Hopkins Gallaudet’s name sign in Gallaudet University’s logo. 

Said Marianne Belsky, ’87 & EdS ’11, Clerc Center’s chief academic officer, “The Laurent Clerc National Deaf Education Center and its teachers, staff, and administrators have long dreamed of a day when Clerc’s name sign, with the index and middle fingers brushing out from the lower cheek, carried the same weight and resonance as [the logo of] our world-famous university.”

The new Clerc Center logo reflects the three major service areas of Clerc Center that make up the organization as a whole: its two demonstration schools, Kendall Demonstration Elementary School and the Model Secondary School for the Deaf, and its national mission programs.

The new branding redesign process began nearly two years ago, with an exploratory phase into developing a logo that reflected Clerc Center as a whole while focusing on a Pre-K through Grade 12 audience. This logo was a collaborative effort with many people involved, with special thanks going to the Gallaudet and Clerc Center artists and designers who were involved with envisioning this new logo and making the design changes needed to arrive at the final version: Matthew Vita, ’08; Bilal Chinoy, ’07; Christine Parrotte, ’12 & G-’18; and Zhou Fang, ’97.

The new logo is being rolled out this fall. Said Belsky, “Like Laurent Clerc before us, our center has grand ambitions for the future of deaf education. We are on a mission to build a world where every deaf and hard of hearing child and their family has effortless language access and can learn without limits.”

Clerc Center has also launched its new website, which is home to deaf education resources, live events and trainings, and the Online Community.