February 26, 2026 – Ahead of celebrating the association’s 140 anniversary in 2026, the Great Lakes Graphics Association is unveiling a rebrand. Anchored by a crisp modern re-design of our long-time “wave” logo, the rebrand also will roll out revamped GLGA marketing, communications, and publications.
The re-branding project is being led by the GLGA’s Marketing Committee, which was formed last summer by the GLGA Board of Directors. “The Marketing Committee was created to help our GLGA staff increase membership, create greater visibility, and try to appeal to the industry’s up-and-coming audience,” said Therese Gulbransen of American Printing Company, who was the first chair of the Marketing Committee.
“We also want to be a voice to help encourage broader community. For so long, GLGA’s target audience has been owners and executives and decision makers, and yet a lot of what we offer is for employees of a company,” she said. The Marketing Committee realized that a re-brand would fit into both raising GLGA’s visibility and encouraging more community within the industry.
When Therese became GLGA’s new Board of Directors Chair in January 2026, committee member Brooke Schumann of Schumann Printers took over as the Marketing Committee Chair to direct the rebrand roll-out.
“There was this recognition of a momentum happening within the association, and we really wanted the brand to reflect that sense of forward motion. Our industry’s evolving, and GLGA is evolving with it,” Brooke said.
“One of the through line concepts the committee talked about early on is the idea of how do we bring modernity to the brand?” Brooke said. “We wanted to better reflect the print and packaging industry, all the innovation happening within and amongst our members. And we wanted to make the brand represent them, so new members and existing members could see themselves.”
The new stylized wave has a symbolic meaning, representing more than just GLGA’s three states. “It came together really around the Great Lakes,” Therese said. “But we really wanted to create something that had more of a curvature, that was inclusive of a complete community. It was really important that GLGA members and our extended families see that, to make this industry a greater, more prominent industry to everybody. So, the three pieces were the three states. But, it was also the body of water, and the earth, and that kind of idea that it has that curvature to be all encompassing. Everyone’s welcome.”
Embodying the spirit of the committee’s mission, the new logo was crafted with diverse input from three generations of print industry professionals: an executive with 30 years of experience; a graphic designer with 15 years; and a newly graduated student.
The goal of the re-brand is reflected in a new tagline, “Advancing Graphics. Connecting Community.” The re-brand also includes a clean, strong font and refreshing color palette featuring a striking Azul blue as the lead color.
The committee has planned a phased brand implementation of the re-brand, unfolding it over the first half of 2026 and leading up to the 140th anniversary this fall. Members have already seen a refreshed website, and now we debut a new look to the GLGA print magazine (formerly known as Graphics Journal). GLGA e-communications also are changing; the Monday Weekly Calendar has been discontinued and a re-design of the Tuesday Currents is coming soon. Stay tuned as more is unveiled.
“GLGA is stronger because of our members uniting to give back to the industry,” said GLGA President Joe Lyman. “We are grateful to our founders 140 years ago, and we appreciate today’s leaders providing vision to take us into our next 140 years.”
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ASSOCIATION LOGO FILES FOR YOUR COMPANY MARKETING
GLGA member companies are entitled to use the GLGA logo in your company marketing, including your print publications, websites, and social media sites. Please help us launch our re-brand by updating to our new logo wherever you are displaying an older version. Not currently using the logo? Please feel welcome to add it now.
To access the library of file formats and the Brand Usage Guide, log in to the Members Only area of the GLGA website.
