“In the year 2000,” explain Walter Kostner and Margarida Nobre, who were entrusted with the task of acquiring a new logo, “Chiara Lubich had indicated ‘Mary, Mother of all Peoples’, in which she appears to gather everyone under her mantle, as the image which could in some way represent the Focolare Movement.”
The new logo wishes to express this concept: the blue symbol evokes Mary with her arms open to humanity, in order to sustain it, to comfort and dry its tears and to lead it towards heaven. The smaller symbol, which has the same form, represents the Focolare Movement in its quest to ‘repeat’ Mary, while the colour of the flame signifies the presence of the Risen One among all the components, the effect of which is putting into practice the commandment of Jesus to love one another.
Two German communication professionals, Andrea Fleming and Ludger Elfen, coordinated the graphic design contributions from around the world. The final version was created by Andrea Re. Considering the expansion of the Focolare throughout the world, the logo has been created in 44 languages.
The adoption of the image – which from this point onwards will identify the Focolare in all its expressions through the various types of media (apps, social network, websites, multimedia, posters, leaflets, events, letterhead) – also had an impact on its official international website.
While the multi-lingual website remains the same in its structure, the overall look and feel has been restyled thanks to Gabriele De Sanctis who created the new graphic design, Marius Teleman who, in collaboration with Andrea Baldas, implemented the new theme and template, and Marija Bonnici who coordinated the project.
So what’s new? The colour scheme has changed throughout to be in harmony with the blue and yellow-orange hues of the logo; the multimedia-gallery is visible on the home page; the feature boxes in the side-columns have a more stylised look.
Since the navigation throughout the website has remained the same, we hope that our online visitors will continue to feel at home!