WHERE

If you haven’t ventured up Burnaby Mountain in a while you might be surprised to see how incredibly it has changed. UniverCity is the award-winning , sustainable and master-planned residential neighbourhood adjacent to Simon Fraser University. Since its inception a decade ago, it has become an international beacon for urban planners searching for an example of long-term sustainable community planning.

Our task was to examine the UniverCity name and evolve the identity then create a new website and other materials to appeal to all levels of community residents, developers, investors and government.

IDEAS

Following a number of workshop sessions on defining the communication goals and messages for the Trust, we developed a complete Brand Essence for UniverCity. This became the establishing work to lead us to naming options and, within a mandate to preserve as much of the equity of the original identity, establish a new and more vibrant colour palate and a completely revised wordmark.

WORK

We developed graphic standards and integrated the new brand look into all printed communication materials, and a new website. Additionally, we devised several unique direct marketing initiatives to get the attention of the development community, and get developers the tools they need to start talking about UniverCity in their own sales materials in a consistent manner. To respect the sustainable mandate of the community, all printed materials were printed on recycled, carbon neutral stock and printed at Hemlock Printers, one of the most environmentally-friendly forward printers in Canada.

The new site had to appeal to all target users on different levels and integrate marketing and sales tools such as image libraries for real estate developers. Areas of functionality such as open forums that in the past had caused problems were removed in favour of top-down blog-like content and information delivery. A simple to use CMS back-end has revitalized the administrative staff’s enthusiasm for posting, and has even had an impact on the communication avenues now available to them.

Initial feedback on the identity overall has been very well received by all. New wayfinding and more vibrant signage has dramatically improved navigation through the area and the overall look and appeal of street-level signs and banners. Feedback from the development community on waste-saving development calls-for-proposals and attention-getting, breakthrough marketing has helped the Trust immensely and solidified their leading position.

“The SFU Community Trust has been working with Industrial Brand for the past two years and we have found them to be an accomplished and highly professional firm that has shown a strong commitment to our organization’s needs. We have found Industrial Brand staff to be responsive and willing to think broadly and creatively about the projects we have engaged them with, and have found their outcomes to be consistently above our expectations.” - Jonathan Tinney, Director of Community Development, UniverCity

Launch site: www.univercity.ca

WHERE

The identity of the recently merged programs of Architecture and Landscape Architecture at this leading Canadian university were suffering from a fragmented and underwhelming online presence. In comparison to the programs of other universities of this calibre, the site would have little influence on potential new students, and was not functional as a means to unite those currently in the program.

IDEAS

A key to the redesign of the SALA website was to present the UBC School of Architecture as a leader in the education of architecture, as well as to reflect a culture of design, research and community within the four recently merged departments. Additionally, the site required the delivery and management of a vast amount of program and admissions information in diverse graphic and textual forms in an easy to navigate format.

The site’s audience was identified as five distinct constituents, each with different goals, content priorities, and expectations for the website. The new site needed to present different information for each constituent. If a faculty member was to log in, their experience and permission to edit or create content would be different than that of a student’s or the public’s

WORK

In contrast to the many brochure-style school websites, Industrial Brand proposed that SALA present the exemplary work that is produced on an ongoing day-to-day basis by its community on their new site. The new design dynamically features content individually input by staff, faculty and students using a Drupal platform as a content management framework and an HTML and Flash presentation layer. Through the provision of individual blogs/conversations and the areas of the site provided to key groups, the site fosters interaction, exchange and exploration amongst the SALA community.

The site’s homepage greets visitors with three key navigational methods for entry to content: 1. Taxonomy – the familiar hierarchic menus along the top; 2. Folksonomy – a unique, sortable tag bar system along the right side; and 3. Chronology – time-based content like upcoming events/news displayed along the bottom.

“Industrial Brand’s process was educational, creative and productive, all at the same time. More importantly we are proud of the result (www.sala.ubc.ca), which has been a good fit with our unique design-oriented community and faculty, staff and students.” - Ronald Kellett, Professor of Landscape Architecture, School of Architecture and Landscape Architecture (SALA)

Launch website: www.sala.ubc.ca

WHERE

With top-ranked teams throughout the collegiate system, TWU wanted to update their athletic department logo to more accurately reflect that of a “passionate, active and distinct athletic experience”. The new brand had to resonate with students, faculty, staff and alumni as well as competing teams from other universities.

IDEAS

While maintaining their name and heritage as the “Spartans”, we explored many options for evolving their existing logo at the same time as providing a completely new and dynamic look athletes and fans can both rally around. After much exploration, a completely customized typeface was developed for the wordmark and a fresh, dynamic and modern logomark emerged as the final artwork.

WORK

With the new logo in hand, and guidance from us, TWU’s internal design team set about applying the new identity to the myriad items of branded athletic uniforms, equipment, signage and playing fields and courts. This new look has garnered much praise and will likely become the most enduring of the team’s identities in the history of The TWU Spartans.