St. Colman’s College
BRAND IDENTITY
Communicating educational excellence for one of
Northern Ireland’s top grammar schools.
Brief
Marking the school’s bicentenary, St. Colman’s College partnered with Mitso to revamp the school’s visual identity, complete with refreshed school crest, refined messaging, a suite of new school photography, and a new Prospectus and results booklet.
Goals
Communicate excellence
Revamp the school’s visual identity and messaging to reflect 200 years of educational excellence and tradition.
Refresh the College’s school crest
Update St. Colman’s College’s well-known crest to represent a progressive yet established school.
Capture the St. Colman’s Ethos
Manage the creation of a bank of new photography assets for use across print and digital.
Authentic visual assets
Create a commemorative bicentennial Prospectus, reflecting the school’s identity and values.
Solution
We first conducted a survey of parents, pupils and staff to identify core opinions about the College and its identity and received overwhelmingly positive feedback. The St. Colman’s College community is invested in its growth and continuing the school’s rich academic tradition. We knew that it was therefore important to be considerate in our approach to refreshing the school’s visual identity.
We reimagined the school crest to maintain its core identifiable elements, (the Bible and two keys), adding a more contemporary, strong typeface – Larken Medium, and a clean font, Jazmin Regular, for the Latin ribbon. We included 1823 on either side of the crest, as a nod to the school’s bicentenary, and ‘Violet Hill’ to acknowledge the school’s historic school grounds. We also created an Irish version of the crest for use on Irish language collateral.
Looking to the school’s wider visual identity, we were guided by the College’s iconic navy and pale blue uniform, introducing additional dark blue and cyan shades to the primary colour palette. We also introduced a soft and warm neutral colour palette to signify a nurturing school environment, contrasted with new bright complementary colours to reflect the school’s vibrant academic and extra-curricular tradition.
We then worked with St. Colman’s College to develop a fresh look and feel for the school Prospectus, and accompanying visual assets including a Results Booklet, school posters and a commemorative Bicentennial Boulder.
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To truly capture the St. Colman’s College ethos and way of life, we captured a full suite of new school photography, spanning all school subjects, school facilities, and a range of extra-curricular activities, along with pupils and staff. This imagery conveys so much more than words ever could to showcase life at Violet Hill, and it leads all visual design work for the school.
Beyond the visual identity, we also worked with the College to refine key messaging (mission and vision statements, and values), and establish tone of voice.
As a 200-year-old institution, it was important to capture the College’s well-established tradition of educational excellence, while conveying a drive for innovation and a welcoming environment to inspire pupils to reach their individual potential. It was also vital that the school’s core values, Bonitas (Kindness), Disciplina (Self-Discipline) and Scientia (Knowledge) remained central to all messaging.
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