FCS Brand Redesign

Branding & Creative Suite for the Faculty of Community Services (FCS) at Toronto Metropolitan University

+ BRAND IDENTITY
+ GRAPHIC DESIGN
+ CONTENT STRATEGY
+ DIGITAL/SOCIAL MEDIA MARKETING

Welcome to the Faculty of Community Services

CONTEXT

The Faculty of Community Services (FCS) at Toronto Metropolitan University (TMU) is a community of innovators, creators, collaborators, scholars, designers, planners, and practitioners who understand and care about multiple perspectives.

FCS houses 9 distinct schools comprising of a total of 23 undergraduate, graduate, and doctorate programs. Programs include nursing, urban planning, occupational and public health, and social work, to name a few.

FCS strives to impact individuals and communities to propel positive and enduring change. With passion, rigour and curiosity, FCS develops knowledge for action, prepares students to address complex social and ecological challenges, and works to create a just society by building with communities. Innovation in research, teaching, and learning is a faculty-wide strategy to address societal challenges.

THE CHALLENGE

The Faculty of Community Services is a dynamic faculty embodying a diverse range of students, faculty, staff, and alumni, committed to changing lives and transforming communities to have a positive impact across various disciplines.

“We are uniquely positioned to address real-world challenges thanks to the diverse range of schools that form our faculty.”

However, the existing FCS brand identity did not seem to reflect the mission, principles, and vision of the faculty and the schools within. Visually, the old identity needed to be updated to align with the central university’s evolving design philosophy: “A brand is an organic system and while it is important to be consistent; it may evolve over time with circumstances.” Thus, FCS needed a refreshed brand identity that would visually represent its leadership, boldness, passion, and innovative spirit. In addition, it should be able to be consistently implemented across various channels and platforms (i.e. web, social media, and print).

The Old Identity:*

*Not my designs

“After collecting continuous feedback, we concluded that the existing visual identity did not represent the vitality of FCS.”

Thus, a redesign began.

THE REDESIGN

I noticed there were many distinguishable strengths in the Faculty of Community of Service’s brand — it was lively, colourful, dynamic, and personable. With these strengths in mind, I designed a “refreshed” visual brand focusing on boldness and consistency, to better representing the unique vitality of FCS. To streamline the process, I focused on refreshing 3 essential brand elements:

︎ Brand Palette
︎ Graphic Device
︎ Graphic Layouts

1. Brand Palette: Bolder is Better!

One of the most recognizable elements of FCS’ visual identity is the brand palette and use of colour. FCS needed a well-established primary palette in order to distinguish itself as one the eight faculties at Toronto Metropolitan University. The refreshed palette is used to enforce FCS’s bold brand perception and values in diversity and innovation, while working within the central university design system. In addition, this bold palette effectively promotes readability and accessibility in graphic content and digital communications.

PRIMARY PALETTE:

SECONDARY PALETTE:

Web UI; before and after

︎︎︎

2. Graphic Device: Intersection of Mind and Action

One of the greater challenges of this redesign was finding the balance between being bold and innovative, while staying within the central university brand guidelines. As a notable faculty under the Toronto Metropolitan University brand, there were many constrictions and limitations to what could be changed to the brand identity.

One of the greatest strengths of the faculty’s visual identity, however, was their unique graphic device — the FCS “sticks”, as we called it. This device was meant to be a graphic representation of the faculty’s core values, symbolizing connection, collaboration, and most importantly “the intersection of mind and action”. This versatile device, purely unique to FCS, is a recognizable visual symbol of the faculty’s brand values and mission — all it needed was a refreshed approach.

BEFORE:

︎ Unpredictable layouts
︎ Unclear guidelines of usage
︎ Visually outdated
︎ No primary palette (too many colours)

AFTER:

︎ Consistent layouts
︎ Clear guide of usage
︎ Refreshed, bold and modern
︎ Reflects brand palette, reinforcing brand identity

3. Graphic Layout: Simplify, simplify, simplify

As the central university brand evolved, there was a greater need for consistency and remodeling in the faculty’s visual identity. Using the new palette and graphic device, I developed a system of layouts, typography, and visual hierarchy that would reflect the refreshed brand guidelines. This new brand system was designed to be uniform yet versatile, and effectively aid in communicating across FCS’ various channels and platforms (i.e. social media, web, email, print) and to a vast audience.

The redesign was meant to reflect the university’s brand design evolution: “Larger images, less text, and fewer boxes” and most importantly — more consistency!