The athletic teams from Valparaiso University located in Valparaiso, Indiana, are known as the Valparaiso Crusaders or just Valpo.
Meaning and history
Valparaiso Crusaders was the name of the athletic program from Valparaiso University in Indiana until 2021. Today the program is named Valparaiso Beacons, or simply Valpo. The 19 sports teams represent the private university, which was founded in 1859 as the Valparaiso Male and Female College.
Today the teams of the program compete in such sports disciplines as Basketball, Baseball, Football, Swimming, and several others, as a part of the first division of the NCAA, with the clubs being members of the Missouri Valley Conference.
What are Valparaiso Crusaders?
Valparaiso Crusaders is a former name of the athletic program from Valparaiso University. Since 202119 men’s and women’s sports teams play in the first division of the National Collegiate Athletic Association under the name Valparaiso Beacons.
1973 – 1996
The Valparaiso Crusaders badge, designed in 1973, featured a stylized image of a knight, standing with his arms bent and ready to fight. The knight was drawn in solid-brown lines with some thin white elements, making the contours of the image more distinctive. For more than twenty years the brown knight was the only element in the Valpo badge.
1996 – 2010
The knight was depicted in a cartoonish style, which hardly did a good job for the brand identity.
The logo used in 1996-2010 was dominated by a large “V.”
2010 – 2019
While the current Valparaiso Crusaders logo and the previous one allude to the crusaders’ theme in a pretty direct way, the older logo was less transparent.
On the current emblem, you can see the upper half of the body of a knight in armor and helmet. The lettering “Valpo” in yellow can be seen below.
2019 – 2021
The redesign of 2019 has introduced a minimized version of the Valparaiso Crusaders visual identity, which has kept the main elements of the previous version as the shield and the color palette. However, now the shield became the central part of the composition, with the figure of a night completely removed. The graphical element was placed under the bold slightly arched “Valpo” lettering, written in the uppercase of a bold geometric serif font, in solid yellow, with a thin white and brown outline.
Colors
BROWN
PANTONE: PMS 4625 C
HEX COLOR: #381E0E;
RGB: (78, 41, 19)
CMYK: (15, 60, 92, 80)
LIGHT BROWN
PANTONE: PMS 469 C
HEX COLOR: #613318;
RGB: (97, 51, 24)
CMYK: (15, 60, 92, 70)
GOLD
PANTONE: PMS 116 C
HEX COLOR: #FFCC00;
RGB: (255, 204, 0)
CMYK: (0, 12, 100, 0)