Refreshing my Alma Mater's image.
Me and a copywriter developed three propositions for a fresh approach to appealing to students and businesses in local area and beyond for Birmingham City University.
For the first idea, we used a silhouette of a person that is filled by a fusion of photos that symbolise the events, people and places that have helped to shape them through their experiences at BCU.
Depending on the audience, the silhouette and the photos within it would change to reflect the elements most important to them.
The undergraduate shape, for example, would be that of a younger, trendier person – listening to music on their smartphone, perhaps.
For postgraduates, we’d use a more professional image – reading, talking on the phone, or even doing something practical that’s related to a specific course.
For businesses, the shape could be that of an item that relates to their industry or the sentiment of the message.
The whole approach works because it is cleaner, fresher and different to anything else on the market. It enforces the idea of BCU as a modern, leading and innovative university – at the same time showing its hands-on, collaborative approach through the use of the fusion effect.
This visual style focuses around the sentiment of the headline transforming and creating the career of the student.
The illustrative design symbolises how the experiences and knowledge gained at BCU enables people to create a better future in their chosen field.
This style would look bold, striking and different from BCU competitors’ creative, while, at the same time, still retaining some visual similarities to their previous creative, to add a feel of continuity.
With the third style, the imagery would be created using strips from two different images. One of these images, as an example, could represent a student, the other representing Birmingham as the place where their success was made possible.
To separate the creative for the various target audiences, the designs would be colour coded – undergraduate always leading with BCU yellow. The UG creative would also have vertical lines, symbolising the up and coming new talent and their desire to grow and aim for the stars.
Postgraduate creative would lead with BCU blue and have horizontal lines - signifying the more level-headed and mature approach to life of a postgraduate.
The business creative’s lines would be vertical - from lower left to upper right. This is visually the most dynamic direction, symbolising growing and evolving businesses.
Birmingham was the home of two of the best-known type designers – William Caslon and John Baskerville – they created some truly iconic typefaces. So, I used Caslon as the headline typeface for this creative, further enforcing the rich heritage of Birmingham and BCU’s strong ties with the city.
Added to this, the visuals for this approach almost look like a piece of artwork, which makes it very eye-catching and also links to the impressive art and design credentials of BCU.
