Managing Co-Branding for Educational Programs

Brand Development for educational programs is not easy. There are many stakeholders to be considered and the system must work in a wide variety of applications. Unlike past projects for educational branding such as the brand identity for ELG, we had to accommodate a highly complex brand eco-system.

The Antai College of Economics and Management (ACEM) is a top-ranked business school, not only in China but world-wide. It is part of the renowned Jiaotong University in Shanghai, which in turn has many other colleges under its umbrella, some of them employ their own branding and some are more reliant on the Jiaotong master brand. To make things even more complicated, there are also the different programs within ACEM, which have their own logo lock-up.

Apart from the design implementation, to balance these different roles of the ACEM branding was key to a clear and consistent identity.

After developing several initial concepts, some abstract, some with more tangible elements, the leading visual – a line-art rendering of ACEM’s main building – was selected along with typography and brand colors. We then moved on and implemented the design principles across many touchpoints: LED screen template design, office documents, gift bags and stationery.

Finally, as is the case with all branding work we do, we put together all ideas and templates in a brand book that hopefully it easier for college staff to create consistent and attractive material.