Remember that blog post in which we hinted at some fresh and exciting things happening at CuCo? Did it keep you guessing? Well the time has finally come for us to reveal a significant piece of the puzzle.

Drum roll please…?

We are proud to announce that following an extremely competitive pitch at the end of last year, CuCo have been appointed as the creative design agency for the new Dorset Studio School, due to open September 2014!

Located in Dorchester and specialising in environment and land-based sciences, Dorset Studio School will aim to equip young people with the skills, knowledge and experience they require to succeed at work.

As a joint venture between Kingston Maurward College and the Thomas Hardye School, the school will deliver a pioneering approach to learning focused on active, hands-on education, with a strong focus on practical learning outside of the classroom.

The pitch was a challenging one, but also one that we as a team were extremely excited about. Being a Dorset business we are passionate about championing the local area and the Studio School concept is one we all believe in. Hence when CuCo was chosen as the school’s creative partner… well we were over the moon!

The first project brief was to design and develop a colourful and energetic brand identity that would effectively communicate the essence of the new school. Starting from roots up, we worked to develop a design that would give a fresh, modern identity to the school, that was both friendly and relevant, while retaining a professional and businesslike feel.

CuCo delivered a fresh, clean logo with modern styling, inspired by satellite imagery of seven ‘fields’ distilled into a simplistic shape and netted together to create a grid. Intuitively conceived, these seven fields reflect the seven key features that are at the heart of the Studio Schools model, whilst also acting as arrows to depict the seven major arteries into Dorchester, including Weymouth, Poole and Yeovil. There is also a resemblance within the imagery to a bird. This can be interpreted to represent that each student will grow wings and fly the nest into employment.

 

 

Senior Graphic Designer and co-founder of CuCo, Christian Cutler commented

‘From a creative perspective it was a joy to have the opportunity to work on a branding project starting totally from scratch, particularly because the venture is so get-up-and-go with a colourful and exuberant identity to match.’

He added:

‘To see the whole design concept come to life has been incredibly rewarding.’

Over the past few months CuCo have gone on to deliver a consistent image for the school’s advertising (on and offline), stationary and all of their subsequent marketing literature, including a prospectus. We were also responsible for producing a responsive website for the school that quickly and simply communicated what the school had to offer and how people could find out more in advance of it’s opening.

Kingston Maurward principal Clare Davison said:

‘The Dorset Studio School will help transform the lives of many young people. Students will gain a broad range of employability, enterprise and life skills which will give them the ability to start their own business, go to university or into employment.’

We will be showcasing some of our work for Dorset Studio School in our portfolio very soon, including a prospectus, so stay tuned!

Here it is: Our DSS Work