Helping a school for autism rebrand and scale

Beacon Day School is a school for children with autism and related disorders in California. In August 2020, Beacon approached me to fully reimagine their brand and position themselves as an emerging leader in autism awareness and education. The goal of the rebrand was to convey a more polished, professional look and feel and build a brand that was inviting and optimistic to make enrolling feel easier for students and their families. My involvement included a full brand redesign, a new website, staff uniforms, environmental branding for the school, art direction for a photo and video shoot, and robust brand guidelines to create a more modern and consistent customer experiences. Any new content they create follows these guidelines to help grow their brand efficiently and authentically.

CLIENT

Beacon Day School

YEAR

2021

ROLE

Creative & Art Direction, Design, Animation

LOGO REDESIGN

Beacon's previous logo featured a lighthouse, which was a feature they felt connected to. I explored over 100 iterations of lighthouse designs before we settled on the final logo, which featured book pages as butterfly wings to symbolize new beginnings and growth.

OLD LOGO

NEW LOGO

NEW BRAND MOODBOARD

A concern for many students with autism and related disorders is feeling overstimulated by their environment. For this reason, we chose a soothing color palette inspired by the natural elements, instead of the bright, primary colors often utilized by schools.

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In addition to the new Beacon logo, I created modified versions for each school within the BDS ecosystem (elementary/middle school, high school, and adult transition), including environmental brand guidelines to make each school's classrooms unique.

Results

The new brand helped Beacon differentiate itself and present a more mature, established look and feel than others in the space. This gave them the credibility to scale their staff, increase their enrollment, and open a second campus: there is now a wait list to get in.

ENROLLMENT SAW A LIFT OF

106%

LOCATIONS INCREASED BY

2x

WEBSITE DESIGN

To optimize functionality and user experience, the Beacon website required a full redesign. The previous site relied heavily on stock imagery and dense copy and was not accessible for people with disabilities. This excluded many prospective students from exploring the site and created a barrier to enrollment. I developed a new site that conveyed movement and energy through the use of video, motion graphics and interactive elements. I started by wireframing the ideal user experience that prospective students and their families would have upon visiting the new website.

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OLD SITE

NEW SITE

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The previous Beacon website was not optimized for mobile or tablet responsiveness, and was not ADA accessible. A major focus of this effort was to ensure accessibility for all people across all devices.

ADA COMPLIANCE

For many Beacon students and families, English may not be their first language, or students may have limited verbal skills. To accommodate this, the site was designed to be highly interactive and graphical, leaning on imagery, animation and visual cues instead of text wherever possible.

INTERACTIVITY

ILLUSTRATION

I created a series of illustrations and animations to easily convey Beacon's teaching practices, educational methods, and therapeutic services. A percentage of prospective Beacon students have limited verbal skills, so conveying as much information as possible through illustration was paramount for connecting with site visitors.

PHOTO & VIDEO SHOOT

In addition to serving as Art Director for the photo and video shoot, I curated the raw assets and handled post-production of final image selects and b-roll footage. The shoot was successful in bringing the new brand to life and helping prospective students and their families better understand what Beacon is about. The content captured from this shoot was used across the website (including the homepage hero video) and in marketing collateral.

UNIFORMS

To support their day-to-day functions and create a professional credibility, Beacon requested the design of uniforms and branded apparel worn by all Beacon staff and educators.