5 Tips to Create the Perfect School Branding Brief

YOU MIGHT ALSO LIKE...

Are virtual events the future of education marketing?

Sep 30 2020

Are virtual events the future of education marketing?

When Coronavirus hit, everyone had to find new ways of working and the education sector found different ways to adapt.
Why Online Applications Are the Way Forward

Sep 30 2020

Why Online Applications Are the Way Forward

A paper-based admissions system doesn't just give off the wrong impression to students but also takes up valuable staff time and can be costly.

Preparing the perfect design brief for your school branding project can be a daunting task. So, we’ve put together some tips to help you write a great brief - after all a great brief will help your design team work their magic and deliver a fantastic result.

1) It’s all in the background details

To help a designer get under the skin of your school, it’s really helpful to give them plenty of background information so they can understand as much as possible about your heritage and where your school is positioned in terms of competitors. So, include the following in your background info section:

  • Who are your key competitors?
  • What’s your USP? (unique selling point). What makes your school stand out from the rest?
  • What are your school values?
  • Describe your school (for instance: traditional but forward thinking, modern and high tech, etc)
  • Where will your branding be used? School website, prospectus, signage, social media…
  • When do you want to launch your new brand?
  • Why do you want to rebrand? What’s your objective?

2) Your school name

Seems obvious – but you’d be surprised how often we don’t get the full or correct name on a brief! There’s also your school strapline if you have one. So, what to include in the school name section:

  • Your full school name (and how it should be displayed, for example upper or lower case, hyphenated)
  • Your strapline or slogan and how this should be incorporated

3) Your preferences for branding styleindependent_brand_gallery_ashville.jpg

  • Does your school logo need to be symbolic?
  • Do you prefer a pictorial or typographical approach? Or is your brief fairly open?
  • Modern or traditional in style?

4) Fonts and colours

  • Most schools will have a colour palette already so always share that with your design team.
  • Or if you have a colour palette you really like the look of then by all means include that in the brief.
  • Fonts can make the difference to the way a school is perceived, so if there are certain fonts you would like to use please share this with your design team. Otherwise, a good design team will always use fonts that compliment your school brand.
  • An open brief? That’s fine too. After all you’re paying for a design service, right! So long as the other aspects of your brief are clear, this will be enough for a good designer to produce the WOW factor.

5) Your ideas

  • Some clients want to get involved with the creative process and have strong ideas about what they would like to see incorporated into the design. If you’ve something in mind that you like then go ahead and share your thoughts with your design team – they’ll be able to work those ideas into concepts.

All this should help you structure the basis of a great school branding brief! Naturally, we hope to be seeing that brief at some point soon… please feel free to contact one of our team if you’d like to chat!