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Characterizing ²ÝÁñÉçÇø Details

• Strategic Principles

  An identity is the embodiment of our strategic plan, our goals, and our college’s community culture.

  Strategic Plan:

  • Gives us direction of the College
  • Sets out priority audiences

  Nearly all strategic goals will be impacted by this project, but Student Success, Culture of Service, and Community Engagement goals in particular will strongly benefit from this project.

  Organization's Goals

  • Defined through the Strategic Plan and by extension the Accountability Plan and Operational Plans
  • Sets more specific targets for success

  College Community Culture

  • Takes into account both the current culture and the intended direction of our College’s culture
  • Determined through interviews with prospective and current students, alumni, faculty, employees, and partners from all six campuses

  All of these things indicate what our strategic principles should be.

  Who are we talking to?

  Keeping in mind for each of our audience groups:

  • The way that they like to communicate
  • Our reason for communicating with them

  What messages do we want to send?

  These include our key characteristics, the unique value that The ²ÝÁñÉçÇø has to offer, and what the personality of ²ÝÁñÉçÇø is.

  Examples of these messages may include:

  • We care about our students and we're here to help them succeed.
  • We’re here to provide long-term value for your life.
  • We are locally driven and focused, but are connected nationally and internationally.
  • We’re seeking feedback so that we can continue improving.

  Our message is communicated both verbally and nonverbally. It’s embodied in:

  • The way we look
  • The way we use language
  • Our customer service
  • Our pursuits in the outside community
  • Our organization’s culture
  • The experience that people have in working with us

  How do we communicate that message?

  The success of our message is entirely dependent on how well we can communicate it.

  • This is decided based on both our audiences (who) and our messages (what).
  • These are our strategies and general guidelines for the ways that we want to communicate, and are detailed in the next step, Rules and Styles.

• Rules and Styles

  We prepare rules and principles for:

  The Language We Use

  The tone, word choice, and phrasing of ²ÝÁñÉçÇø's communications has a subtle but powerful impact on the perception of the College and our quality of communication. Ensuring consistency in ²ÝÁñÉçÇø's written and spoken communications unites the many parties that speak on behalf of ²ÝÁñÉçÇø into a single, more influential voice that builds trust for The ²ÝÁñÉçÇø as a whole.

  The Look and Feel of Our Communications

  Similar to the voice style, a cohesive visual style unites ²ÝÁñÉçÇø visually, and builds trust for all of the services we offer. It can also use visual style to communicate nonverbally, including differentiating between information that applies different schools of study, campuses, or demographics more easily.

  Experiences At The College

  This is a huge category, including things like wayfinding, using our website, and the way that the college is marketed. Some examples of experience rules may include:

  • User experience is a conversation: feedback should always be invited wherever possible
  • Strive for simplicity: Information should always be offered concisely at first, with more detail available if desired
  • Social proof: always use users’ testimonials/reviews/stories when talking about the value that we provide
  • Contrast: choose one most important point in your communication, and use contrast to draw the eye there first
  • Ask for less: remove as many barriers as possible to ensure that it is easy and welcoming for the user to take action

• Templates, Guides, and Assets

  From those rules and styles, we create templates and produce a library of assets that follow those rules and styles. This is where we see the digital assets (website and social media) developing alongside print assets, giving them a cohesive look and providing efficient methods of communication.

  Templates

  Templates for common needs around ²ÝÁñÉçÇø are developed with ongoing feedback and participation of the departments that use them. They standardize the way that our materials look and make them quicker and easier to produce. Templates may include:

  • Print Documents
    • Business cards
    • Brochures
    • Posters
    • Rack Cards
    • Forms
    • Common Internal Documents
    • Newsletters
  • Website
    • Page Templates
    • Graphics Templates
    • Blogs
    • Digital Newsletters
  • Singage
    • Wayfinding
    • Outdoor Advertising
    • Digital Signage
    • Other Internal and External Signs
  • Other Promotions
    • Social Media Graphics
    • Powerpoint Presentations
    • Advertisements

  Guides

  Guides are for creating materials that are not covered by the templates, and detail the rules for modifying or creating new templates. Guides may include:

  • Visual idenity guide
  • Marketing strategy guide
  • Written style guide
  • Social media guidelines
  • Customer service guidelines
  • Photography and videography guidelines
  • Guidelines for interior and exterior spacial design
  • Workflows/Standard operating procedures for producing communications
    • This means that when someone wants to advertise that there are seats open in a program, they only have to provide the information, and the correct assets can be produced

  Asset Libraries

  Asset libraries include reusable assets that can be added to

  • Photography Libraries
  • Graphics Libraries
  • Video Library
  • Logo and Symbols

• Final Communications

  From those things, we then create all of the actual final products, materials, and experiences that the college offers.

  Digital

  • Website
  • Social Media
  • Emails (Newsletter/Other)
  • Other Online Products

  Print

  • Promotional Materials
  • Advertisements
  • Internal Documents
  • Printed Documents and Forms

  Experience

  • Campus Signs
  • Rooms and Spaces
  • Digital Signage
  • Individual Customer Service Experiences