AIGA Cal Poly Rebrand
Our student chapter needed a design system with the flexibility to differentiate events and showcase student skills while providing the consistency necessary for a recognizable brand in line with AIGA's brand guidelines. Student designers also expressed a need for a brand that supported them in case of short deadlines, worked well in digital and print media, and helped keep accessibility concerns easy to address.
I worked with Aitana Martinez Huerta to produce new brand guidelines, templates, and event graphics for digital and print materials.
Motivation
After several years with the prior brand, the volunteer team handling event assets wanted to address issues they had found with the existing brand. This included
• Constant contrast and legibility issues
• Struggles meeting deadlines because of the need for hefty revisions
• Disconnect with brand guidelines
• Designers requests that they have more opportunity to be creative and build their portfolio, especially as students and volunteers
• Struggles meeting deadlines because of the need for hefty revisions
• Disconnect with brand guidelines
• Designers requests that they have more opportunity to be creative and build their portfolio, especially as students and volunteers
Strategy
Because the feedback had critiqued the brand at several levels, our solution needed to reflect changes that best served the limited time and interest of students. We worked to make the rebrand "for students, by students" by
• Emphasizing legibility and accessibility with strict rules for parts of the brand where information and interactivity are the focus. Text is always high contrast with restricted size and line length.
• Opening up the brand for creativity and personal strengths as much as possible. Imagery, color, and medium are open to interpretation.
• Simplifying production. No more bleeds for print. No more extraneous guidelines. No more unread brand book that is lost in a Google Drive.
• Building specific, foundational templates to support our quick turnaround times and students’ busy schedules. One template document with different pages per asset. The guidelines for each section live in the template.
• Opening up the brand for creativity and personal strengths as much as possible. Imagery, color, and medium are open to interpretation.
• Simplifying production. No more bleeds for print. No more extraneous guidelines. No more unread brand book that is lost in a Google Drive.
• Building specific, foundational templates to support our quick turnaround times and students’ busy schedules. One template document with different pages per asset. The guidelines for each section live in the template.
Methods
• Informal interview with the production design and brand team to identify issues. Review the past two years of brand assets created. Map desired production flow and timelines.
• Competitive analysis of professional association and volunteer-driven brands. Mood board with an emphasis on flexibility of source material with a few anchoring elements.
• Organize critique and iterate based on feedback from everyone in the chapter with special emphasis on our production team.
• Test out the brand ourselves by producing assets for several months of events.
• Codify and template the rebrand.
• Present final guidelines and template to the team and support adoption throughout future production.
• Competitive analysis of professional association and volunteer-driven brands. Mood board with an emphasis on flexibility of source material with a few anchoring elements.
• Organize critique and iterate based on feedback from everyone in the chapter with special emphasis on our production team.
• Test out the brand ourselves by producing assets for several months of events.
• Codify and template the rebrand.
• Present final guidelines and template to the team and support adoption throughout future production.
The Brand in Use
