Striving for Brand Excellence

The Quality Child Care Coordinating Committee, aka the QCCCC, came to us with a conundrum. A happy conundrum, but a conundrum nonetheless. The committee had thrived under the umbrella of Childreach. Tasked with providing early childhood educators mentorship, professional learning resources, and the opportunity to network, the QCCCC had become more than just a committee, they had become a community. But they had a problem, a name that, while descriptive, didn’t exactly roll off the tongue. They needed a complete name change and rebrand to move forward. That’s where we came in.

The first step was to develop a new name and tagline. We met with all the stakeholders, listened to them, observing their personalities and what made them unique. We developed for them a brand blueprint, a document that would both confirm and help inform our strategy.

And then we brainstormed. Dozens of names were considered. They all had meaning, weaving different aspects of who they were into single concepts. Once we narrowed those down, we moved onto the taglines, summarizing everything the QCCCC was becoming into a few words. This aspect of agency life, the coming together of creative minds is one of its most rewarding, not to mention fun. And in the end we presented our ideas, explaining why every word was chosen, what it represented and why that represented them. We helped them eliminate options (sometimes easier said than done). Ultimately, the decision was unanimous. A new name and tagline were chosen.

Strive – Leading Inspired Learning

Striving for personal achievement, fulfilment, and success. Striving to help others and to improve the lives of children through the mentorship and education of their educators. Leading by example. Inspired by what they do. Always learning. Or simply, leading inspired learning.

Armed with a new name and positioning, Strive needed a new visual identity. The next step was to develop their logo. Like before, we drew up concepts going in numerous directions, playing with different colours, teasing out aspects of Strive with every detail. Again, we presented. Every design choice was rationalized, it all had meaning. And when we landed on the last option we presented, that’s when we knew, and Strive knew, we had found their new identity.

We’ll let the creative team walk you through the logo as we did Strive.

Sentence case text is used to make the group name easy to read, friendly, less stiff and formal, more accessible and gentle. A soft script font was used to give the feeling of motion going forward, and not stopping. It’s about constant striving to go forward and reach your goals. This was complimented by a clean sans-serif tagline written in title case to give equal weight to each word in the line. It also allows the viewer to distinguish each word more clearly when the logo is presented in a smaller format. Title case gives your words a feeling of formality and importance.

The icon represents two things: one, it is a stylized version of the apple, which is a common symbol in the education system (so allowing the viewer to instantly know this organization is part of the education sector); and the second, it is actually two people coming together to converse and share knowledge in supportive role. Both these ‘things’ are represented in an illustration built with five shapes, each symbolizing a founding county in the QCCCC. These shapes take on the form, but also hide an ’S’ shape to reinforce the ’S’ in the Strive script.

Green is the colour of nature. It symbolizes growth and harmony. Green suggests stability and endurance. Green, as opposed to red, means safety; it is the colour of free passage in road traffic. Blue is strongly associated with tranquility and calmness. In heraldry, blue is used to symbolize piety and sincerity. Other attributes are: ambition, growth, nature, optimism, spring and healing.

They loved it. Strive was whole. We had taken the Quality Child Care Coordinating Committee and created something new with materials that were already there. We are very proud of what we accomplished together.

We also built Strive a website, but now we’re just bragging.