Mar/04
A New Look for Emily Carr

Acknowledging the obvious cachet of designing for a design school, numerous Vancouver design firms responded to Emily Carr's invitation with impressive proposals. Fleming Design's winning approach featured an extensive consultation process with all stakeholders, including staff, management and faculty - many of whom have their own well-articulated opinions on what constitutes good design.

Emily Carr had been using a website which contained outdated content and was cumbersome to navigate. Without a clear protocol for adding new information, the site had become redundant and was offering little value to the wide range of visitors to the site.

Fleming Design conducted in-class interviews, circulated questionnaires, and met directly with key stakeholders to reveal common themes. Most importantly, many different people visit the Emily Carr website, and for very for different reasons. The site's navigation needed to identify a range of user-groups at the get-go, then launch into extensive sub navigation options which could be updated regularly.

A theme also emerged during the consultation process. People spoke of the sense of "going on a journey" - whether that meant a student's education process, an applicant's initial steps towards coming on board, or supporters looking to attend events or explore new ways to extend their involvement.

The resulting visual identity - logo, typography, colour scheme, rich textural and layered look - took its cues from the unique industrial setting of the institute and is now the graphic standard for all future in-house design efforts created at Emily Carr.

The opportunity to design for designers was a great challenge and an honour for the Fleming team.

Back