Education branding: The German European School Singapore (GESS) primarily teaches both the German Abitur and the International Baccalaureate (IB) syllabuses at its 2 campuses. The school is moving to a single, larger campus in 2018, which will be able to accommodate 2000 students. Our project was to align and unite all stakeholders behind a common purpose.
Although the GESS logo did not change dramatically from the previous symbol of the ‘Travellers Palm’, every other aspect of both the visual and the verbal identity was recreated. We identified a number of key messages that were important and created a flexible ‘Talking Box’ tagline system that worked with the refreshed logo. The Bauhaus movement of the Weimar Republic inspired the secondary graphic system. The results created a flexible system that differentiated GESS from its local competitors.
With GESS operating in 2 campuses covering age groups from 18 months to 18 years, and having 2 curricular (Abitur and IB), it’s fair to say that uniting the disparate stakeholder groups in the school proved to be our greatest challenge. Tangible engaged stakeholders throughout our process, which culminated in briefings and online surveys to select the final logo. The brand attribute of ‘Inclusiveness’ was selected to specifically encourage a mindset of stakeholder engagement across the different school communities.
Tangible conducted a brand alignment workshop to ideate how the brand could translate into new school activities. We focused on both curricular and extra-curricular opportunities to bring the schools closer together and celebrate their European roots. Our work covered not only students and staff, but also parents and the local community.
GESS is moving into a purpose built campus in August 2018. Tangible was requested to develop an interior scheme for key areas across the new school. We designed most of the public areas as well as interior concepts for different classrooms, libraries and corridors. Our work also included the way-finding signage and key graphic elements throughout the campus. Our interior design work focused on opportunities to bring the school communities together.
