Designing a Brand Identity for my Alumni
Side Note: Mentally, it has been a tough year. It almost seems like one terrible thing after another has been the order of the day. While there have been deeply unsettling/ horrific situations I’ve been exposed to, here’s one good thing that happened that I’m grateful for. This was one of the volunteer projects I worked on that personally brought me joy this year and I decided to pen it down on my medium blog. It’s not over and I will keep up the fighting spirit!
I am a proud product of Queen’s College Yaba Lagos, an all-girls Secondary School. I was a boarder throughout my 6 years there and graduated exactly 10 years ago. I have some really fond memories from my stay there; The teachers, the gist, my friends… all wonderful memories.
Thankfully after we graduated, we found a way to keep up with each other via a WhatsApp group chat.
The Genesis
At the beginning of 2020, the plan to have a 10th year anniversary was making its round on the group and a call for a graphic designer to lend her services and create a poster design to be shared on social media platforms.
I volunteered my services and me being the extra person I am, I pitched a brand identity instead of just a poster design. There was really no naysayers to the suggestion and it was generally well-received.
The Inspiration
So I got to work and the first thing I did like I always do is research and get some inspiration. The usual alumni designs I saw were too closely related to the schools, more like the academic aspect of it but I wanted something that was not only recognizable as part of the school but something that belonged to us- the alumnus.
I settled on creating something that was memorable to the alumnus, school-related and feminine. After all, it is an all-girl school.
The Build-Up
At this stage, I knew how I was going to create this memorable, school-related feminine brand.
Queen’s College is a school with a truckload of history. It just celebrated its 93rd anniversary so yeah- it’s no young rose so I capitalized on this and realised that memories are one of the strongest associations anyone has with the school. With this insight, I decided on using elements unique to the students of the school, symbols of the school itself and feminine items.
After listing most of the items and elements, I sketched them out and created put all the elements in a 10 to signify that we are the class of 0'10 and yep, this was our 10th year anniversary.
The Brand
The culminating brand was a ‘10’ consisting of hand-drawn illustrations of the identified different items and elements.
I presented the idea in a brand design presentation and it was an instant hit.
Made some mock-ups which were also included in the brand presentation.
All in all, it was pretty well-received. I think my favourite part of the whole process was when it was shared with the larger group and everyone started identifying elements on it. It was a really good feeling.
When it was unveiled on the official Instagram page for the set, it was described as ‘a logo that represents everything that is unique to the QC girl.
If you look closely, you will see class arms, houses, the ‘D’ and ‘B’ badge and most importantly our torch.
As a #qcog Class of 2010, there is definitely something in the logo that you can resonate with.
We are celebrating the 10 years of sisterhood and it will not be complete without YOU
The description put into words everything I had hoped to achieve and it was really great to see that I was able to communicate that.
The conclusion
As every day comes, do something that makes you happy. Go the extra mile when that something comes. I was asked for a poster design and I created this and enjoyed the process very much. This project came at a time I really needed to do something out of what I usually do and it was real fun putting it together.
