Today we’d like to showcase a past project. This particular project was related to higher education. We had the privilege of branding and developing the platform.

We had a client approach us about marketing a service that they wanted to implement. The client owned a web-based app that was capable of receiving previous college-earned credit and showing that person what schools they could transfer to or enroll in and maintain the maximum amount of their previously earned credit.
The more we dug into the platform itself the more we realized more work needed to be done. It became apparent to us that the platform itself needed to be reworked into something that was marketable. This project evolved into total product development.
Today we’ll focus solely on the branding aspect, and in particular the look and feel.
Branding
Name
We began with the platform’s identity. It was decided that this platform was one that an individual would directly interact with; therefore, we wanted to give it a name that reflected that personal interaction. The words “My” and “Degree” denoted the personal interaction between not only the platform but the individuals empowering themselves to take ownership over their own journey to continue or renew their pursuit of finishing their degree. Connecting the name to the concept of success meant graduation. It was then decided to connect the name with the simple image of a mortarboard cap as the official mark.
Look
Once we knew the name it was time to decide how would our overall presentation look. Our overall goal was to use the service as a way of simplifying a very complex process. One way to convey that idea that’s very popular is to use animation and explainer videos. We decided to use that direction in developing an advocate/guide that the user could interact with.

A nurturing, self-believing and highly focused qualities were what we wanted our main spokesperson to display. We decided that a strong female character that could be seen as a professor or recent graduate would appeal to all users. A laptop was added to convey that the character was collaborating and/or walking the journey with the user. Why is she on a cloud though? Let’s look at that next.

The landing experience would showcase our character on a cloud above a cityscape as a way of showing the character’s ability to use the technology at hand to rise above the noise - denoted by the city below - in order to focus on the clearest path to the goal of enrolling and graduating.

We settled on teal as the main color used mixed with soft light and dark blues. Soft yellow, orange, and salmon red were incorporated as our accent colors. We wanted our color scheme to be soft and not too energetic. The overall process can be overwhelming and we didn’t want the coloration to add more angst and energy than necessary.
Our serif font (main) was American Typewriter ITC Pro. We felt like the word mark needed a serif as the distinct lines lend more visually the ideas of wide-ruled paper which denotes the feelings of school and education.
Our serif was Brandon Grotesque. It’s thin and tall and we felt it mixed well with the cityscape concept because it had an almost art deco quality, but it wasn’t overtly art deco. It had a very subtle appeal that we liked.
Conclusion
We wanted the identity of the education platform we were developing to be one that was deliberate, focused, and not overwhelming. In the next issues we’ll focus on messaging within our branding and the development of the overall platform.
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