Warren Farm Branding Creates a Real Buzz
With a strong new brand and eye-catching gate signs, visitors can’t miss Warren Farm Primary School now, which was a persistent issue for the school previously.
We were approached by the head teacher at Warren Farm Primary School to help them create a new, more professional brand that would elevate the school’s presence in the community. The head came to us with some strong ideas of what he wanted and of course, we included this in our initial concept development. We also wanted to explore some other ideas that came out of the initial conversation with Simon, which included a strong link to the work ethic and community aspect of honey bees.
That the school colours were already black and gold seemed to strengthen this concept. The final design features a bee, set within a honeycomb ‘crest’. A new typeface and extended colour pallet completed the identity, which met the brief of being clean, professional and more corporate, whilst retaining an appropriate look and feel for a primary school.
The initial project included the challenge of how to improve the kerb appeal of the school, which had just one post sign that was being overtaken by the surrounding trees. Our solution was to design and install a suite of impactful signs that made the most of their entrance pillars, with a new sign above the doors to draw visitors into the school. The result was immediate and overwhelmingly positive. As soon as we installed phase one we were measuring for phase two, which incorporated brand and values messaging into the school’s reception and corridor spaces.
“The impact is striking. I absolutely love it!”
There was some initial doubt from the head teacher that a wallpaper product would be suitable in his school. But as soon as he saw our Tuffwall installed the doubts vanished. “It’s so good, so durable. I never would have imagined that from a wallpaper” he quipped. “I’m very impressed”. And the best thing he could have said was that his pupils and staff have thoroughly bought into the new brand and have completely embraced the logo mark and the meaning that sits behind it. We’re expecting lots of bee-inspired activities at Warren Farm in the future!
Ofsted Impressed
Following a recent inspection, the impact of the new branding found its way into the school’s Ofsted report. Given the limited space for the inspector’s written comments, it is an impressive accomplishment. They wrote:
”The school’s motto, ‘excellence in everything’, captures the high expectations set for all pupils, including those with special educational needs and/or disabilities (SEND). The new ‘bee’ logo reminds pupils about the importance of working hard, and together, to achieve their goals.”
We’re thrilled that this message has been successfully picked up by staff and pupils alike. It was a brave decision by the headteacher to let us take him and the school down a route they had not considered initially, but the result seems to speak for itself. In fact, it has others speaking for it as well!