Child360 | Part 2
Skills Utilized
Art Direction
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Visual Design
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Brand Design
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Illustration
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Visual Template Design
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Videography
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Video Editing
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Project Management
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Art Direction • Visual Design • Brand Design • Illustration • Visual Template Design • Videography • Video Editing • Project Management •
2 public awareness campaigns.
1 million impressions each.
And a new visual style unique to Child360.
After successfully launching the Child360 brand, it was time for us in the Marketing & Communications team to develop a fresh approach to creating new visuals for the organization. Up until that point, we mostly relied on photos I took during various preschool site visits, and I was proud to not only be Child360's Senior Graphic Designer, but also their main photographer, videographer, and video editor!
A small sample of videos I shot, directed and edited for Child360. Designer Rachel McHugh provided the animation for Child360’s logo.
Still, even with an extensive in-house stock photo & video library at our disposal, I knew we could do more to stand out from our peers in the early education sphere.
That desire led me to develop the Child360 Character Maker.
With a ton of marketing and instructional materials that practically begged us to show a diverse set of young children and families in various scenarios, I created the Character Maker as a customized, modular illustration template.
This allowed us to create new graphics quickly, and edit those new graphics easily.
First, I built out the different components - heads, limbs, hairstyles, skin tones, as well as some basic poses and facial expressions:
The basic components of the Child360 Character Maker.
All of the components could be adjusted, mixed and matched as needed. If for whatever reason a character's pose, age, gender, or ethnicity needed to be changed in the design process, we could do so with just a few button clicks.
Then, I ensured additional components like clothes, props, and accessories always adhered to Child360's color palette. After applying this style consistently, we soon had a multitude of flyers, brochures, animations, and social graphics that anyone could easily tell came from the same organization:
Along with these marketing materials, the visual style of the Character Maker was incorporated into two of Child360's public awareness campaigns — Dual Language Learning and Brain Building from Birth. Both campaigns succeeded in reaching their target of 1 million impressions each.
The vector-based illustrations kept file sizes small and easily scalable to fit nearly any format. The flexibility and creative mileage I got out of this template is something I couldn't have achieved through photography alone.
TV spots and and handheld brochures designed for Child360’s public awareness campaigns - Brain Building from Birth and Dual Language Learning. An external vendor provided the animation for the TV spots.
It wasn’t long before the Character Maker eventually influenced other aspects of Child360's brand. Staff eventually introduced blue & orange accents into their work wardrobe, our event decor & prizes matched our color palette, and I even made it so past / current photos matched our brand as well!
It was already wonderful to establish Child360’s brand in a way that brought in a revenue growth of $3 million, and a pair of successful public awareness campaigns. But it became especially gratifying to see staff outside our team incorporating Child360's brand into other aspects of their work life.
To see how we strengthened the company culture, and brought both dignity and fun to the field of early education, is something for which I am extremely grateful to have been a part of.