We are all brand guardians
By Cheryl Belford, Design Manager, Keele University
“Design is the silent ambassador of your brand” — Paul Rand
A brand can often be seen as just a logo. Perhaps also with a few specific colours. But a brand is much more than that. It is about having a purpose, belonging, and sharing the same values. It is about consistency: of tone, of message, of style, of purpose. You’ll know yourself how many times in a single day you interact with a brand, whether that’s physically online, or just in conversation. I dare you to count!
Our brand is one of our most valuable assets — it can help make prospective students, partners, and businesses want to study or work with us, and it can help to establish trust, build confidence, and improve our reputation.
Together, we have a responsibility for how our brand is perceived through all that we do, say, and show to the world. This will not only set us apart from our competitors, but it will also help us to achieve our organisational goals.
For this reason, at Keele we have recently:
- conducted market research to find out how external audiences perceive us
- clarified our strategy and brand position
- refined and streamlined our visual identity and tone of voice
- developed a cohesive and extensive set of brand guidelines that bring together our values and gives clarity across all of our touchpoints.
A visual symbol
We’ve reduced the number of different variations of the Keele logo in order to keep things consistent, as well as introducing a logo that encompasses “Est 1949” so as to reinforce our position as an institution of long-standing heritage. This will also help to establish trust with our target audiences:
Life is like a box of crayons
We have reviewed our vast colour palette and removed all of the unnecessary colours out of our brand. Our primary colour is now simply Keele Blue with an accent of white, which reinforces our brand position and heritage. Using these core colours consistently will help build our brand awareness:
The art of typography
Emphasising words of importance, grabbing people’s attention, and setting the mood is a big part of our brand. We’ve used a blend of fonts and typography to reflect our authenticity and modern aspirations, as well as typefaces to express what we say in a visual way:
Summing up the essence of Keele
We’ve created a tagline for our campaigns that encapsulates Keele factually and confidently. “This is Keele” demonstrates who we are and is short enough to be remembered — without going down the route of using homogeneous or meaningless slogans that audiences often find patronising (“Shape your future”, etc).
Capturing the moment
We have refocused our attention in using beautiful, diverse photography that captures our stories, shows who we are, and brings our messages to life:
A sophisticated and simplified visual identity
Underpinning and providing Keele with a coherent visual identity is key. We’re enhancing our touchpoints with our new visual style, especially our digital presence through our website, social media channels, online advertising, videos, and email marketing, but also on our printed materials including the new undergraduate prospectus and branded stationery:
Moving forward
We have now:
- created a SharePoint full of assets to keep everyone on-brand including a virtual background for when you are leading lecturers or events online, PowerPoint packs with added themes, email footer, digital letterhead in line with our sustainability mission, report template, social media templates, and a range of icons
- started to manage our brand assets and creating additional assets in a coordinated way
- begun engaging with key University colleagues so that all of our services and interactions use consistent branding
- started to redevelop some of our sub-brands such as Root & Branch, and working to bring all of our departments and services in line with the new brand direction and guidelines
- provided external agencies with support and guidance, and implemented new governance mechanisms to ensure that work produced externally stays on brand.
We’re here to help. If you’d like to understand more about our identity so that together we can build a coherent and consistent brand then please get in touch with me.
By Cheryl Belford, Design Manager, Keele University
