— University of Gloucestershire

We need to promote our green credentials!

Refreshing the University of Gloucestershire’s brand
became a quest to promote their sustainable credentials
and promote new brand values.

The University of Gloucestershire is a medium sized university with campuses in Cheltenham and Gloucester. As with all Higher Education establishments in the UK, the University needed to respond to the impact of a growing list of challenging circumstances.

With a new pro-vice chancellor and a willingness to change an entrenched culture, a new strategic development plan was introduced. This centred on three overall priorities: Growth, Service and Profile.

We were invited to work closely to look at the profile element of the strategy; it was clear from our initial strategic review that the university needed to raise its profile not only locally, but also nationally and internationally.

To achieve this it needed to develop a new corporate style, refreshed marketing collateral, an internal communications system and an external media/communications plan.

Short of producing a brand new logo research indicated that the University would be better retaining the existing logo, and underpinning it with the new brand values outlined within the strategic development plan. This required a complete brand audit of all marketing and outward facing collateral and development of new brand guidelines and templates, which internal designers could use and build upon.

Key to this was really getting to grips with the sustainability message. It was paramount that the University took ownership and leadership of this, as it was clear to us that other institutions would try and claim similar positioning in the quest for differentiation.

Sustainability had to permeate the very fabric of all outward-facing messaging; we developed guidelines and templates, which could be used by internal designers to determine the brand development. The ultimate aim was to produce collateral, which didn’t just convey a sense of sustainability, but also conveyed it in such a way that it became part of the brand fabric and as such, was used sympathetically in the background rather than shouting from the treetops.

See also SUMS, ICT, N8, Art and Design at Harrow, Business Base, University of Gloucestershire Prospectuses, Branding, Print