K12 Insight provides customer service software and support for K-12 schools throughout the country.
THE PROBLEM:
K12 Insight’s current identity failed to capture the unique narrative behind their mission and suite of products and services aimed to help schools. Their identity lacked cohesion throughout their marketing materials both print and online.
The messaging was inconsistent leaving many K12 Insight users and clients wondering what actual products K12 Insight provided.
THE SOLUTION:
The corporate redesign requires a holistic brand system that is both timeless, yet still relevant and recognizable in the school and technology space.
The logo + rebrand needs to be:
-easy recognizable
-capture the integration of technology and school culture
-capture the company’s mission
-help propel a brand reputation of a company that builds trustworthy relationships with their users
-provide cohesive and well-defined branding for the company, messaging, and products/services
IMPACT & RESULTS:
-Conducted user interviews to hone in on accurate messaging that K12 Insight’s user were familiar with
-Designed a logo that truly captured K12 Insight’s mission of seamless integration of their cloud-based products into school districts to provide positive school experiences
-Designed a corporate logo and product logos that worked cohesively into K12 Insight’s narrative
-Created an identity and style guideline that truly captured the spirit of schools and K12 Insight’s users.
The current logo failed to capture K12 Insight’s unique products and positioning. The logo looked dated and the serif font made it look very serious and corporate. K12 Insight is a startup filled with passionate individuals whose passion is fueled by K12 Insight’s mission to help schools.
My goal was to design a logo that tied into K12 Insight’s mission driven narrative, their team members who made it happen, and their users who depended on their solutions.
The symbol has several meanings. I wanted to focus on the concept of basic shapes. The foundation of many shapes starts from the basic shapes of squares, circles, triangles, and rectangles. From the root of basic shapes form variants of several other shapes. The mission of fostering a positive learning environment requires a strong foundation built on trust and effective communication.
I selected the triangle shape for two reasons. One, K12 Insight provides a triad of products. The three primary colored triangles represent the two products (Let’s Talk and Engage) and services (PD and Training). The triangle is also one of the few shapes that naturally tessellates. A triangle tessellates into a hexagon (current symbol). When a shape tessellates, mathematically it means to cover (a plane surface) by repeated use of a single shape, without gaps or overlapping. The idea of the triangles tessellating (products) to integrate with school culture (K12 Insight’s users) to form a seamless integration of technology and culture.
The formula of the new logo and K12 Insight’s mission is technology (K12 Insights products) adding school culture (teachers, staff, students, community) to form a seamless integration of technology-driven customer service products.
The triangles represent the technology aspect of K12 Insight and the chevron shape represents the culture aspect (K12 Insight’s users). The chevron and triangle are repeating shapes found in the product logos and marketing materials.
The idea behind the product logo is each primary color is assigned to a product.
Let’s Talk is blue. (customer experience platform).
Engage is red (customer experience research platform).
PD & Training (customer experience workshops).
The idea behind the product logos is the integration of technology and school culture. The repeating shapes of triangles and chevrons represent the integration.
Let’s Talk: the idea is that the users are the prime focus of the platform. They use Let’s Talk for outbound and inbound communication within schools and communities.
Engage: the users are the prime focus and they use Engage to dig deeper into research and surveys to gain insight on important school issues.
PD & Training: the users (teachers and staff) are the prime focus. They use K12 Insight’s workshops to learn new skills.
I created a style guideline that was used as a guide for creating content that was on brand. The guideline was used by developers, designers, the marketing team, and any internal team members who created content. It was as a resource to make sure any marketing material created either in or out-of-house would be cohesive and consistent with K12 Insight’s corporate branding.
The imagery is playful and organic. The style of illustrations, the textures, the color scheme all invoke the spirit of schools. School is a place to learn and discover. Perfection does not exist in schools; students are still learning and trying to master their potential. They still are exploring and inventing themselves. The quirky, imperfect imagery embodies that idea.
New marketing collateral included a new product list booklet providing hi-level information about each product. Retargeted and social media ads were also designed. The ads were A/B tested for accurate messaging and effectiveness of layout. The company website was also redesigned to reflect the new corporate branding.