AIAS: A REBRAND WITH A STUDENT FOCUS
Starting with some fresh course creation for AIAS's newly created Graphic Design Diploma, great timing allowed me to put my hand up to help creatively lead the design direction for the institute's rebrand as well.
Bringing a modern but dedicated feel to the new brand, bright colours, iconography and a new logo were developed in association with Design Equity's Frazer McLeod and his marketing and web dev prowess.
Role: Creative all-rounder + Curriculum designer (+ Design Tutor )
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Credits: Frazer McLeod logo design and web development
Establishing where we were and where we wanted to go
As part of the rebranding process, I always find it imperative to figure out where a brand is at that point in time (inclusive of any prior work) and where they want to end up eventually. It's an audit of sorts and the slide show below shows the progress of that process.
PRESENTATION DECK
The new AIAS brand statement: To create a wholistic student experience that is inspired by and focused on excellence through professional growth.
LOGO SET
HOVER TO SEE THE OLD LOGO
I then went about establishing a new identity that spoke to all students, not just the engineering ones!
Frazer had just sent over his logo ideas, so with that amazing start point, I got cracking on the icons.
DESIGN NOTES: Frazer was originally thinking to represent each school category with a specific colour, however my thoughts were on brand flexibly and longevity.
Every time we add a new school category we would have to add a new colour to the palette, my way of thinking was to have a strong set of icons that we could add to be representative of each school as AIAS grew.
ABSTRACT
REALISTIC
A fresh new colour palette was introduced...
I spent time creating a colour palette that worked both digitally and in print, so all the colours needed to be CMYK.
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And the font family Gibson.
...and then applied to the collection of icons
SCHOOLS LOCKUPS
(Initial set - 2 more have been added since these were developed)
Next on the design list was some fancy new brochures and a bit of stationery.
A5 PRINTED BROCHURE
DIGITAL BROCHURE
It was a little tricky finding the balance between the playful new colour palette and icons but still looking academic and impactful. I developed what I called an audience/messaging weathervane to help navigate the level of energy, distinctiveness and dedication for each piece of collateral.
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BUSINESS CARDS
The digital brochures were created to be interactive but would still print out ok on someone's home printer (they were made A4).
The website
Unfortunately I arrived at AIAS a little too late to have any say over the UX and website structure as the development phase had already been mostly finished. There were elements in the UI I was able to influence and this was the 'after the fact' design I collaborated with Frazer to integrate as much as possible.
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Welcome and brand offering on landing.
School categories
Downloadable information via a prospectus.
Introduce a friendly face, one that you'll see all the time if you come to AIAS.
Also highlights experience of teachers
Testimonial
Audience CTA buttons. This section transforms into an accordion with options on mobile.
A slider of school and course options.
A big part of my role at AIAS was to create a fresh new curriculum for part of the Cert III in Design Fundamentals as well as the whole Graphic Design Diploma.
I approached the mammoth task systematically with high level matrices, detailed timetables and clear outcomes for the students.
I've never worked on curriculum creation before and really relished the various aspects involved in creating a solid course!
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Testing was an important part of the process and I was lucky to take part in some of the teaching of the curriculum I had created.
