We created a brand influenced by heritage and powered by ambition

A new direction

From their early days delivering courses by post, to becoming pioneers in online learning, ICS have never stopped finding new ways to help people get to where they want to go.

In recent years, with a plethora of price-driven competitors and the rise of AI changing the landscape for ICS Learn, they wanted to reaffirm their position as market leader, differentiate themselves more clearly, and make sure their brand reflected their ambitions for the future.

They approached us to reposition and refresh their brand – developing the brand strategy and positioning, visual identity, logo, tone of voice, brand photography, and motion behaviours for use across digital, social and marketing communications.

The aim of this project was to create a more distinctive, confident and cohesive brand that better communicates the value of ICS Learn, supporting future growth and giving the business a stronger platform for the years ahead.

Asking the right questions

Our discovery phase is designed to uncover what makes a brand distinctive, and where its real strengths lie. We began with a series of interviews with key stakeholders. From the C-Suite to heads of department to key team members, we explored brand perception, positioning, audience, customer experience and much more, looking under the hood of the business and learning as much as possible about the business, its journey so far, and goals for the future.

Surveys were also sent to the wider team, and to current and lapsed customers to get a broader view of the reasons why customers choose ICS Learn.

Many hands make light work

After analysing the output of our discovery stage, we brought the ICS Learn team together in our studio for a brand strategy workshop. Through a series of interactive activities, our workshops help teams and businesses visualise their future, and ultimately get everyone on the same page feeling galvanised and energised about the direction of travel.

Our aim was more than creating a new look. It was about building clarity about the future of the brand, giving the business a stronger foundation for growth.

Built to last

While creating the brand platform, we had several factors to bear in mind. While ICS Learn has been in business for over 130 years, they are firmly future-focused. Over the decades, the world of education has changed dramatically, yet ICS Learn has continued to evolve, remaining at the forefront of what their industry offers.

That contrasting balance of heritage and evolution led us to ask the question: “what principle would ICS Learn have in 1889 that still rings true today?”

The answer became our central brand idea: “To learn is to live”.

A simple statement that could just as easily be etched on the sandstone walls of Pennsylvania more than a century ago.

In a nutshell, we encapsulated the enduring reason for learning: the human desire to grow, progress, and create new possibilities.

More than words

We crafted the rest of the brand platform – vision, mission, positioning, pillars, values, personality, and tone of voice – around that idea.

Alongside it, we created a new brand promise: “Progress with purpose.”

Despite being just three words, this tagline says a great deal about what ICS Learn offers, and talks directly to what customers can expect from them.

Making our mark

With the strategic direction established, we set about translating our work into a new brand visual identity.

Logos needn’t always have depth and layers of meaning. In fact, most don’t, for the simple reason that it’s hard to do it well.

But for ICS Learn, our logo design has meaning in spades.

Is it a book, a trusted symbol of knowledge? Is it a butterfly, a well-known metaphor for development and transformation? Or is it an arrow, pointing up and to the right, an easily-understood shorthand for progression? In reality, it’s a carefully crafted, distinctive mark that combines all three of those ideas.

A question of colour

Blue has been part of the ICS Learn brand identity for decades. And while a fresh new colour is often tempting, we all agreed that this colour had valuable brand equity worth retaining.

Where previously the branding had been mostly blue, our new colour palette introduced a series of supporting colours, linking to various faculties, to bring more depth and variety for the in-house creative team. The result was a more expressive and flexible visual identity without losing the recognition ICS Learn had built over many years.

Onwards and upwards

The key themes of the new branding were progression and momentum, which we visualised through our gradient ‘progress bars’: a flexible, adaptable backdrop for any size or format that conveyed a subtle, soft sense of movement even in static form. These backdrops could be adjusted by colour, and made darker or lighter providing the ICA Learn internal team with a real depth of choice for their branding and marketing materials.

Just our type

Typography is one of the most important aspects of a visual identity, and for inspiration we combed the ICS Learn archives and their extensive collection of historic materials.

We selected MCKL Type’s Trust as our primary typeface, using two cuts (a flared serif and a sans serif) to strike the perfect balance between heritage and modernity.

A story in three parts

When all is said and done, the most important thing for ICS Learn is their students. Using everything we learned from talking to students and the team, we wanted to visually represent the journey that ICS Learn can take them on, and the positive impact that occurs. We devised a simple pathway for students: “Dream it. Learn it. Live it.” The before, the during, the after. This simple statement quickly and succinctly mapped out the journey for students.

A brand in focus

To visualise this journey, we planned and art-directed a two-day brand photography shoot across multiple locations, capturing imagery of students as they progress through this journey. Colour-coding was incorporated, to represent various faculties and create a cohesive and flexible image library for the wider identity.

Working with our talented partners, Reuben Paris, Monumont Studios and Colours Agency, we created an extensive suite of brand photography that adds reality, personality and life to the branding, giving the in-house team a versatile library of assets to work with.

We like to move it

Bringing everything together was a series of motion design principles and brand behaviours designed to give the identity greater energy and flexibility in digital environments. From the animated logo to the motion of the ‘progress bars’, the motion system introduces a calm, subtle sense of progression that feels entirely at home across social content and other digital communications.