Evolving and developing a new brand and visual identity for Pears Cumbria Medical School
The challenge:
When the University of Cumbria and Imperial College London approached us to develop a comprehensive brand strategy for their new joint venture, they had already had a logo and minimal brand guidelines in place, but at that point in time, not a great deal more.
The challenge was to expand on this preliminary foundation and create a robust and distinctive branding and content strategy that would not only define but also distinguish the medical school in a competitive educational landscape.
This involved understanding and integrating the diverse visions and needs of multiple stakeholders to develop a cohesive and appealing brand identity for this new medical school - a unique partnership between Imperial and Cumbria which brought together Imperial’s world-class medical education to meet the need for more doctors due to rising healthcare demands in Cumbria and the North West.
What we delivered:
Brand Strategy Development: We initiated the project with an in-depth exploration of the brand strategy needed for the new medical school. This phase was crucial to ensure that the school's brand would resonate with its diverse stakeholders and align with its educational mission. This phase included:
Stakeholder focus groups to engage key university stakeholders to gather insights and align visions.
Comprehensive audience research - conducting interviews, surveys, and competitive analyses to define priority audiences and develop detailed audience personas.
The development of three visual identity concepts (all based on the existing logo) and two messaging routes, using user testing to refine these elements.
Content strategy and website development: We crafted a new website content strategy to provide a robust foundation for the school’s online presence, facilitating effective communication and engagement with prospective students. This included a focus on:
Information Architecture to designed the structure of the website to ensure user-friendly navigation and content discovery.
Identifying and recommending the types of content that would be most effective for engaging the audience.
Collaborating and co-creating with website developers 6bythree to advise on and apply branding to wireframes, as well as overseeing the integration of course copy and other website content.
Brand & messaging guidelines development: Creating comprehensive brand and messaging guidelines was essential to maintain consistency across all communications and to effectively convey the school's brand identity. This included:
Detailed guidance of how new graphic elements, iconography, photography, and typography could be used within the brand to bring it to life.
Messaging frameworks and tone of voice guidance for specific audiences to empower the internal marketing team to confidently craft compelling on-brand copy.
These strategic initiatives provided the Pears Cumbria School of Medicine with a strong brand and content foundation to successfully launch and position itself as a leader in medical education in the North West.
“Pickle Jar’s adaptability, patience and innovation has pushed our brand into a space that reflects our bold ambition to become a new medical school in Cumbria for Cumbria.
Starting from only one logo and a limited brief, they were able to support a wide group of stakeholders and build confidence in a process that was somewhat alien to a lot of us. It’s been a fantastic journey that has exemplified why thoughtful design is integral in a competitive HE market.”
~ Angie Illman, Senior Project Manager, Imperial College London
Looking to refresh or expand your brand?
If you’d like to find out more about how we can help you develop out a new brand strategy, drop us a line, we’d love to hear from you.