PROMOTIONAL MATERIALS AND BRANDING
For Vancouver’s largest fashion and design school
THE CLIENT
Blanche Macdonald Centre is Vancouver, BC, Canada’s largest and longest-running fashion and design school. As Graphic Design Director, I lead and executed a multitude of projects along with our Marketing team and school owner. Below are examples of some of the projects I worked on.
BARBERING AD SETS
THE CHALLENGE: CREATE TO TWO DISTINCT AD SETS FOR THE BARBERING PROGRAM
Blanche Macdonald Centre was looking to promote its barbering program to two distinct groups of potential students: people interested in the technical aspects of barbering, and folks who were looking change careers or upgrade their skills. A challenge with barbering education ads is that they can be confused for barber shop or salon ads. This is something that both ad sets had to address to be effective.
I incorporated scientific-like labelling into the visuals to communicate ‘technical’ and ‘precision’ at a glance.
THE SOLUTION
I designed this first ad set [see below] to attract potential students who would be drawn to the technical aspects of BMC’s barbering program. I incorporated scientific-like labelling into the visuals to communicate ‘technical’ and ‘precision’ at a glance. The copy in the diagrams relates directly to Blanche Macdonald’s Barbering curriculum, and can be read, or simply—and more likely—absorbed as part of the overall ad. I used white, blue and red to communicate ‘barbering’ as these colours have been traditionally associated with the field [at least in western culture].
The photos I chose to use in the ad set clearly conveyed teaching and learning—with one person showing the other how to execute techniques on a test mannequin head. I converted the photos into black and white to bolster the ad’s technical and serious feel. The ads were published via Google ads across Canada.
Blanche’s Admissions Team noticed an increase in enquiries about the program within a 48 hours of the ad set going live.
Above: Ad set 1—excerpts from the Google Display ad set promoting the technical aspects of BMC’s barbering program.
I designed the second ad set to attract potential barbering students who were already in the workplace and who would like to change careers or upgrade their skills.
Photos that centered around action/process—versus final results—helped convey the idea of a dynamic, timely program.
Our ad metrics, especially on the Pinterest platform, pointed to a higher click through rate where our barbering ads were career-focused, and the carousel copy was written with this in mind. Photos that centered around action/process—versus final results—were the focus of the carousel and helped convey the idea of a dynamic, timely program. The ads were published via Pinterest across Canada.
The ad set significantly helped increase enrolment in the Barbering program, and Blanche’s Admissions Team noticed an increase in enquiries about the program within a day of the ads going live.
Above: Ad set 2—excerpt from the Pinterest ad set promoting the BMC barbering program to folks looking to change careers or update their skills.
ALUMNI PROFILES DESIGN
THE CHALLENGE: ENCOURAGE STUDENTS TO ENROL AT BMC
The aim of alumni profiles was to inspire prospective students to enrol at Blanche, and to create marketing content for the school. BMC’s admissions team also used the profiles as a tool to help persuade prospective students to sign up.
A challenge that needed to be addressed in the profile design process was the limited number of and/or sometimes low quality photos provided by some of the grads being profiled. Not all images were available in high resolution, and the number of photos sent to our team could be limited due to confidentiality or copyright.
Above: Excerpts from various grad profiles.
THE SOLUTION
I tailored the design of each profile to reflect each graduate’s personality and design sense. I employed a more editorial/magazine style to make the profiles seem less like ads for the school, and more like informative editorials. To mitigate the varied quality and quantity of images grads provided, I created and incorporated new design elements into layouts [see Nessa Pineda’s profile above]—elements and photo treatments that enhanced each profile’s vibe.
The result was a larger and more diverse well of profiles admissions could draw from, and more content for the BMC marketing team to use on the website, in digital ads, and on social media.
Above: Header image from hair program graduate Erin Klassen’s profile.
INTERACTIVE PDF APPLICATION FORM REDESIGN
THE CHALLENGE: FEWER PAIN POINTS FOR STUDENTS REGISTERING FOR PROGRAMS
The original Blanche Macdonald application forms were long, crowded, and didn’t offer space for applicants to share which pronoun/s they identified with. There were inconsistencies between forms for different programs, and this caused confusion with students and the admissions team. The forms weren’t interactive, either—making them cumbersome to complete. A complete revamp was needed, and with BMC’s most current branding.
THE SOLUTION
I designed the new forms with clarity, brevity, and ease-of-use in mind. The updated forms were not only consistent in content [with minor exceptions for program-related requirements] across all areas of study at the school, but used consistent typographic standards. I inserted interactive fields in Adobe Acrobat so that the forms could be quickly and easily filled out. I also changed each application form’s file name so that they were in a consistent format easily found by internal staff.
Two of the central changes I made to the forms were: adding a pronouns field, and updating the gender identification field. Our marketing team did extensive research as well as inquired with students and staff about gender and pronoun identification, and it became clear that a ‘custom’ option [versus a much less inclusive ‘other’ option] was best used in both fields. Note: we considered omitting gender on the application forms completely, but were required to include it by the government of British Columbia.
Above: Excerpts from the Global Makeup and the Fashion Design application forms.
Client: Blanche Macdonald Centre
Art direction and design: Morgan Mallett
Vancouver, BC, Canada, 2018 – 2023
