As the education industry continues to evolve with an abundance of content and technology tailored to individual needs, McGraw Hill recognizes the importance of celebrating individuality and promoting equity in education.
My role in this project was to lead the design team to explore and define a new visual direction that reflects the evolving definition of education and embodies inclusivity and individuality. The project involved evaluating the usability of their current brand guidelines and gaining insights into how McGraw Hill is perceived both internally and worldwide.
The new visual direction wants to convey McGraw Hill's mission to provide innovative and inclusive educational solutions that empower learners on their unique paths to success. This involved understanding and addressing the challenges faced by educators, learners, and professionals in today's dynamic educational landscape, and developing a visual identity that resonates with them.
Given that this occurred during the pandemic, we developed a tailored workshop for the global marketing team. The aim was to gather insights in how the team was utilizing their current brand guidelines and the team’s perception of the brand. The workshop comprised of three main parts: Visual elements analysis, Competitive Analysis and Ideation.
Prior to the workshop. A questionnaire was sent out to gather usability insights and pain points of their current branded design elements. During the workshop, we had an open discussion in regards to these summarized points and shared our own research and analysis of the current visual brand. This allowed us to have an open discussion with the larger team. The workshop facilitators took notes in real time, using sticky notes to capture participants' observations. Furthermore, participants were encouraged to independently add their own thoughts and explore freely.
In our competitive analysis we studied visual snapshots of our competitors to see what they are doing good and what we should avoid doing.
A notable example is Simple Social Sample, which involved capturing snapshots of the competitors and disruptors’ social media channels simultaneously to understand their communication styles and strategy across different social platforms.
As the last section, we explored other brands outside our category that have effectively established design systems capable of conveying their core values while maintaining a distinct and memorable identity. The workshop yielded remarkable success, culminating in a concise task list that was seamlessly integrated into our project scope.
To learn more about the design phase of this project please visit my McGraw Hill Education case study page.
