It is back to school time and for the students going back to Marlboro College Graduate Center, things have changed.
It is no longer the Graduate Center but the Graduate School. And, with a new name comes a new look.
We worked with a wonderful team on the school’s rebranding process. After a thorough research process, including focus groups with various audiences, conversations with a number of stakeholders, and competitor research, we presented a design direction brief based on all that we’d learned.
We discovered that it was important for the Graduate School to be connected with the better-known undergraduate school, Marlboro College, but to have its own identity. We considered several ways of doing this—font usage, color choice, and variations of the undergraduate logo. We decided to use the same font for the words Marlboro College as the undergraduate uses, use a san serif font that is used in the undergraduate viewbook (we were also able to design that!), and use a similar color palette.
This provided the connection we wanted. Then it was time to create a mark that was strictly for the Graduate School. We presented about 10 options and two rose to the top. After careful consideration they selected the finalist.
The logo represents both the undergraduate and graduate schools. The small house on the left symbolizes the undergraduate campus, and the large building on the right indicates the Graduate School building in downtown Brattleboro. It can also be interpreted as “graduating” from one school to the next, or even taking the next step in your life. How do you interpret it?
Once we were finished with the logo process, it was time to give the logo a home. We proceeded to layout their business cards, letterhead, envelopes, marketing brochures, and trade show booth. We also were able to give it a home where many people world-wide would be able to view it.
We designed their new website. This also involved a lot of research into usability and functionality with a number of user audiences. The end result is a visually beautiful site that is logically organized and easy to navigate. What a great opportunity to work on such a fun project for a wonderful school!
Check it out! gradschool.marlboro.edu
