Categories
Clients Projects

Visual Identity for Georgia Gwinnett College’s Corporate Affiliates Program

The Office of Advancement at Georgia Gwinnett College (GGC) has a newly expanded program, the Corporate Affiliates Program (CAP). This program develops strategic relationships between students, the college, and successful businesses in the Atlanta Metro area. They called me and asked if I could help them develop an identity and online strategy for this new program. The tricky part of this identity and strategy was that the CAP identity could not use any of GGC’s current or past logos or institutional marks. Further, any programs, departments, or organizations affiliated with GGC were not allowed to incorporate new fonts, create new color palettes or new logos. With all these restrictions, CAP still had to look like it was part of GGC.

There were more restrictions than there were liberties. But that’s fine by me. Having worked with University of North Georgia’s re-branding efforts, and guiding the use of that institution’s new marks, I was well-equipped to design around these restrictions. Aware of my branding experience, they hired me right away and said this strategy needed to be in place and operating before the summer’s end.

My research began. I scoured the internet for information about the program, its goals, what people were saying about it, what it was doing. I look for participants, affiliates, businesses–anything that would help me give GGC a sound, educated recommendation. GGC also sent over some information to help me understand CAP’s objectives.

After a consultation with the Office of Advancement’s CAP team, I worked closely with them to develop an online strategy, program identity, social media graphics, custom hashtag, and Microsoft Office templates. I identified which social media platforms would best reach their target market, and what to post on each. I talked about creating a “Voice” for the program to use online, and gave them descriptors for how the Voice should sound.

Once I developed everything they needed, I sent all my advice over in a Strategy Guide. They received a custom MS PowerPoint template, MS Publisher tri-fold brochure template, plus flyer and invitation templates. I customized social media logos to use in those templates. These mostly-blank templates were designed with “holes” in them where GGC can drop in photos, graphics, text or content updates. The structure and design of the templates remains the same, but I prepared them to easily incorporate updates as the program evolves.

They received everything they needed to get this program running and looking like the professional organization it is. In the end, they received an extensible, flexible visual strategy they could use for years to come, yet stay within the college’s visual media restrictions. See the deliverables in my portfolio.