Name and Usage
The Harvard Medical School logo is a strong and well-known symbol that was specifically developed to reflect the elegance, gravitas and strength associated with the Harvard name. The School’s relationship with the shield and the Harvard name are locked up in the primary logo.
Use and Rules of Logo
When using the Harvard Medical School logo, it is important to abide by the set guidelines and rules listed below.
- Use the actual Harvard Medical School logo. Do not create or render your own. We have provided downloads of the HMS logo in different formats on this website for ease of use.
- Never distort the logo, add elements, outline or put the logo on a background color similar to the color of the shield.
- Provide space around the logo equal to the size of the height of the name “Harvard.”
- There may be a need for a "tagline" in certain situations. We recommend keeping the tagline at least a shield's distance away from the logo.
- Whenever possible, we recommend using the primary Harvard Medical School logo. However, if you need to use the logo on a dark background or use the logo in a black and white document, variations are provided below.
Primary Logo
The Harvard Medical School primary logo locks up the shield and the Harvard name to the School's name. It is important to note the clear zone that is shown in the example below to give the appropriate room around the logo.
Variations
As stated in the Use and Rules of Logo section above, we recommend that you use the primary Harvard Medical School logo whenever possible. But, if you are working on a dark background or a black and white background, different approved variations of the logo have been created especially for these occurrences.
Knockout version of the primary logo. Harvard word mark becomes white. Other colors remain unchanged.
Black and white version of the Primary Logo.
Gray scale version of the Primary logo. Red becomes 50% black.
Typography
The typography used in the Harvard Medical School logo is hand-created, as it was for Harvard University, and is not available for public use. However, several different type faces are approved for use and can be found on the Typography page.
Using HMS logo and HMS department lockups on garments and other materials:
Please ascertain if vendors placing approved HMS logos/wordmarks on garments and fabrics can do so accurately by using only official supplied HMS logos/wordmarks. It is unacceptable for vendors to attempt to re-interpret HMS typography or the HMS shield with their own files or design equipment. If rendering HMS logos/ wordmarks faithfully is impossible given limitations of embroidery machines or other transfer applications, information describing the school, department, or other association should be set in simple, sans-serif type (Helvetica is ideal) with a rule separating it from the shield above (which can be rendered larger for clarity). This solution, which is the only alternative approved by HMS, serves to prevent vendors and other organizations from creating styled wordmarks or logos that could be seen as official identities for the school. We have provided an example of this solution below for reference.
