Branding Texas International Education

Texas International Education Consortium (TIEC) came to us with the challenge of re-envisioning their image and online presence that would match their mission and vision for years to come. The Texas International Education Consortium is committed to creating lasting relationships between Texas higher education and counterparts around the world through collaboration, co-creation, and the sharing of knowledge and values. TIEC fit right into the expertise and passion of Dijidl North. Together we collaboratively planned how we would take on the challenge agreeing on a revolutionary logo design.

We first went to work on the brand redesign. We conducted market research on brands that were within TIEC’s field like American Council on Education, Institute of International Education (IIE), Consortium of Global Education (CGA) and NAFSA and those outside of the market for modern design inspiration like South by Southwest, Apple, and Peace Corps. By conducting market research, we were able to grasp an understanding of brands across the field and establish how TIEC fits into that realm. We additionally conducted an extensive internal branding survey for TIEC employees and stakeholders. The survey allowed us to understand the internal perceptions of the TIEC brand. In the end, the survey allowed us to collect a set of five adjectives that those across the organization felt connected to the current mission and future vision of TIEC. Those adjectives were: refined, international, modern, bright, and collaborative.

The survey and brand adjectives allowed us to develop an initial mood board to set the design direction for the new brand. Note: mood boards are a curated collection of objects to start to imagine the unified look and feel of a creative project. From the feedback of the mood board, we updated the board to serve as our north star for the design process.

We then spent time diving in the design and brand of TIEC to come up with two potential directions to present to TIEC. When we design brands, we always consider not just the shape of the mark, but also the type that accompanies it and the colors. All of those pieces come together to make a logo and a brand is who that logo, fonts, and colors translate across the organization.

The two directions were revolutionary and took a step away from the current branding.

We presented the two directions to the TIEC team and received really helpful feedback. The team was excited about the directions and the more modern look, but it was obvious that they felt disconnected from the options because it didn’t include their iconic Texas star. We didn’t scrap the progress we made because there were features about the first round that the team gravitated too. It was very important to us to simply listening in the first direction meeting and ask many questions, to truly understand the “why” behind their actions.

So, we went back to the mood board and we adjusted for the next presentation. This time we provided both a revolutionary (drastic change that is not connected to the original visuals) and evolutionary (modern adjustments, but the core of brand still visually connected) option. This time it was clear that everyone on the TIEC team was on the same page. They choose the evolutionary direction because they felt is solved the challenge of re-envisioning their organization for years to come but felt authentic to TIEC. After discussion, the TIEC team also realized that they wanted to push the bar on vibrant colors. With an evolutionary logo, they wanted their colors to be revolutionary.

TIEC team went ahead with the option on the right with an ask to make the colors more vibrant.

Final Logo: We went back and forth about the colors but settled on the option above.

One of the most important moments of this branding process was scaling it for the website redesign. We built a design guide for TIEC that specified the brand colors for print and digital as well as typography and when it should be used. The design guide is crucial for any organization because no matter who comes and goes in your organization, your brand will stay consistent. That consistency helps engagement and audience recognition, which for this organization meant potential grants, funding, and program users. To scale to the website, we also built a small design system that specified what colors buttons should be, how photos should look, what font and what size should be used for certain situations. This brand consistency and scaling is something Dijidl North has lots of expertise is, but we have seen this feature of consistency and scale is unfortunately forgotten with many brands redesigns we have seen. If you are interested in learning more about our branding services, visit: dijidlnorth.com/services/   

To see the new TIEC branding at work, check out: www.tiec.org