University of Warwick’s Student Careers & Skills provides support, resources, workshops and events to help students and alumni make the most of their time at Warwick and prepare for their future. 

They were under pressure to significantly improve upon student outcomes. Key barriers were lack of recognition – students simply not knowing that the service existed – and late engagement.

IE Brand introduced a powerful new campaign brand – My Warwick Journey – with striking visuals to break through the noise of a busy campus, arrest attention and drive up student engagement. Response to early creative work – right up to VC level – was so positive that budget was quadrupled and remit extended to marketing strategy, event planning and service rationalisation.

The work drove a 19% increase in appointment attendance and won Gold for Best Visual Identity at Europe’s premier re-branding awards, Transform.

Read more about Warwick's careers campaign brand or explore IE's other rebranding work with university careers services.

Imperial College London’s Careers Service provides varied and comprehensive careers guidance, information and a vacancy service to students and alumni at the university.

Stakeholder research showed that the service was suffering lack of understanding and student recognition. Beginning with a Strategy Workshop to the Career team, IE Brand went on to create a new visual identity for the service to raise awareness in a ‘noisy’ market.

IE Brand’s work resulted in a clear strategy, a newly expressed brand proposition and a striking new visual identity. We created brand guidelines detailing how to express the identity when working across the university and within individual faculties, as well as branded collateral, banners and magazine templates. Awareness and engagement levels among students increased, while careers staff confidence improved dramatically. 

Read more about ICL's careers brand or explore IE's other rebranding work with university careers services.

Following a substantial restructure and investment programme the University of Birmingham’s Careers & Employability Centre recognised that a rebrand – including a new name – was going to be vital in helping them communicate organisational change.

They wanted to raise awareness and engagement levels and achieve ambitious targets for student satisfaction, employer ranking and national awards. Immersing ourselves in the university's audience research and value proposition work, IE Brand identified the brand's essence – connectivity, which led to a new name – Careers Network – and audience-specific straplines for students, staff and employers. 

We then created a distinctive visual identity using 3D, photographic typography and a rich set of graphical assets to embody the ‘real voices’ of students. Student engagement increased by 289% and the work won two European Transform Awards. 

Read more about Birmingham's Careers Network brand or explore IE's other rebranding work with university careers services.

The University of York is a top 20 UK university with a strong record of employability – it comes top of all the Russell Group universities for the proportion of graduates in work or further study three years after leaving. 

In spite – or perhaps because – of that success, the Careers brand had been neglected and no longer represented the services on offer. They needed to increase visibility and drive engagement with a compelling strategy, simplified brand architecture, clear and concise messaging and an arresting visual identity. 

IE Brand helped UoY to achieve just that, creating a more mature brand for Careers with strong calls to action and a more challenging tone. The new brand sets expectations higher and emphasises a less passive, partnership approach between students and the careers team to maximise their prospects.

Read more about York's careers brand or explore IE's other rebranding work with university careers services.

University of Aberdeen Careers Service wanted to invigorate its brand. While they had a strong foundation on which to build, they wanted to evolve the brand identity to improve awareness and engagement, on and off campus.

Following a listening exercise, IE Brand gauged key stakeholder values and provided a simple, succinct and concise report, from which Aberdeen could benchmark their performance and IE’s design team could develop the new visual identity.

IE brand then created a set of compelling visual assets and a new brand identity to improve the impact and effectiveness of the service, while honouring the university’s existing brand guidelines. The new brand features the prominent use of a chevron, a heraldic symbol lifted from the University of Aberdeen’s traditional crest, and provides clarity, consistency and flexibility across a range of collateral.

Explore IE's rebranding work with Aberdeen and other university careers services.

Part of the University of London, Heythrop College was established in 1612 and provides undergraduate and postgraduate degree programmes in philosophy and theology. They were re-expressing their course offerings to fit more closely with students’ needs, and wanted a new brand and website to help communicate that to potential students.

IE Brand reviewed Heythrop’s internal research to summarise the top line brand, and agreed a vision for the college’s identity. We repositioned Heythrop from a conservative Catholic college of theology and philosophy, to a vibrant college of the University of London, thus attracting and moulding students to change their world.

IE introduced new, intriguing images and messages to bring the personality of the college to life on and offline. We also evolved the school’s crest and modified the typography to align it more closely to that of University of London. The college's fresh new website had a stunning user experience to help students find the information they need.

Read more about Heythrop College University of London. 

Plymouth Marjon University needed a recognisable and consistent visual signature across all its employability comms – whether they come from the careers service, or from
Academic departments. The Futures brand needed to conform to the spirit of the University's brand guidelines, while allowing for the fact that the guidelines allow for a degree of innovation, where appropriate and impactful. 

Futures offers a personalised, student-centred approach to employability, tailor-made to each student. In common with other University Careers Services, Futures places a healthy focus on employability, and offers support and guidance to everyone that comes through its doors (and even those that don’t). But there’s one crucial belief that shines through: They believe that life’s an adventure, and that the key to happiness is finding a career that you love.

The brand's tone is conversational, informal and quirky. The visual identity is distinctive and eye catching – with messages that follow suit. Sometimes be seen as ‘the underdog’, beneath the surface Marjon is bold and confident – encapsulated in the Futures messaging: ‘I Am Marjon’. Marjon students are determined to succeed, and the Futures team helps to make that happen.

Explore IE's other rebranding work with university careers services.

Aston Careers + Placements service offers students careers advice and placement opportunities to help them best prepare for life after university.

Aston Careers, Placements and Employability (as it was then known) was already a sector-leading, highly successful service, but they recognised that they were suffering from poor brand recognition and inconsistent campaigns. IE Brand was tasked with creating a distinctive brand identity.

We developed an urban, edgy visual style and arresting statements to engage students at a highly emotive level. The work drove an 84.5% increase in attendance at The Placements Fair and was Highly Commended for Best Use of a Visual Property at the Transform Awards Europe 2015. 

We've also worked closely with Aston as part of our work on the Goldman Sachs 10,000 Small Businesses programme. 

Read more about Aston's Careers + Placements brand or explore IE's other rebranding work with university careers services.