Logo and Branding Design for 2x Educational Brands on a Mission

Brand strategy, logo design, visual identity design

The challenge was to bring an old visual identity design up to date and create something that positioned the brand as more professional, more established, and larger than a “small, local” company. At the same time, a new business was being developed that spoke to a different target audience within the same industry.

The objective was to create a pair of different, yet visually related, sister brands that could compliment each other in their work - building upon a shared value system, but speaking a unique message in a slightly different dialect.

The goal was to excite and reassure parents and children via the FUNdays Club brand, and build professional trust and confidence in school head teachers and educational professionals via the FDC Training & Consultancy brand.

Serious About Fun - The Story.

Mark West is a man with a powerful Ultimate Social Purpose - to truly enrich the lives of children and empower educational organisations to do the same.

Mark had been working in the childcare and educational sector for many years, having experienced the failings of an inadequate system himself as a child. He wanted to make a change. He knew that childcare had to be more than a carton of orange squash, a biscuit, and a box of toys to occupy them until the parents returned from their day at work.

He had been running his wraparound care service - before and after school clubs - for a number of years through his business, FUNdays Club. The business had gradually grown to a team of 20 passionate and knowledgeable childcare professionals and things were going quite well, but Mark had ambitions for his business that were going to outgrow his current brand.

Mark was in the process of creating a new business, alongside the FUNdays Club childcare business. This business was to become FDC Training & Consultancy, offering professional services to schools, headteachers and education professionals.

The Approach.

Through a series of brand workshops and discussions; assessing his overall business goals and conducting a brand audit, I identified various weaknesses in his existing childcare brand’s visual identity - inconsistencies and a lack of brand guidelines. There was also an overall perception that this was a “cheap and local” brand, and we agreed that this was holding his business back today and would not help him get to the next level.

I proposed that in order to ‘level up’ his business as a whole, we should consider modernising his existing childcare brand alongside the creation of the new brand identity - to develop a brand launch strategy that could excite his staff and get them onboard with the change, and to announce the new business and brand to the target demographic in a significant way.

I pitched the idea of modernising his current brand (to redesign the old, less-professional logo) and develop a ‘sister brand’ for the new business that shared the same values, but told their unique story in their own way. I suggested that both brands could share a visual language, signifying they were related and able to build upon each other, but could stand alone as its own brand.

The visual identity concept, of colourful building blocks that form both logos came from an off-the-cuff comment that Mark made during a brand storytelling workshop

“Ultimately, we want to build a strong foundation for children…”

Immediately this sparked an idea. The childcare brand could play with these blocks in a fun and carefree way, whilst the consultancy brand could build solid structures from them. A shared visual language but a unique message spoken to the right audience. I told Mark about this idea, inspired by his comment, and he suddenly became incredibly excited by the idea and finally able to let go of his old brand identity that would ultimately hold his business back.

The Outcome.

Since working together, my client has seen a marked rise in the number of leads and has directly resulted in a doubling of monthly clients.

Mark said “Before I started this process I just thought I needed a new logo for the new consulting business and a brochure, but Will has given me so much more. It’s given my team a new framework for our thinking, a totally different mindset, and a set of brand tools that helps me and my team do a better job.”

“Working with Will has been transformational. The depth and breadth of understanding is exceptional.”
⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️

Mark West,
FUNdays Club and FDC Training & Consultancy