The experience we want students to have with our content
- Fulfil their functional needs – allow them to take action quickly and easily
- Deliver meaningful information – content they care about, that is relevant to the real student experience
- Shape their experience – guide them to live “the UBC experience”
Goals that guide all of our publications
- Deliver a user-centred experience designed around students’ information and transactional needs
- Deliver coordinated and focused communications through appropriate channels
- Communicate to students the key elements of the UBC experience
- Direct students to services and opportunities so they ‘live the UBC experience’
Attributes of the Student Services visual style & how they relate to the UBC brand
Our persona for Student Services has several brand traits, which were developed to have strong paralels to the core UBC brand attributes. This is a model for how we can take the UBC brand attributes and express them in a way that students will connect with.
How to express the brand attributes and persona traits
Not all attributes will apply to every piece of communications, but we should aim to express as many of these as possible in Student Services communications.This will help us stay on brand and maintain a consistent voice for Student Services.
- large, bold-weight typography for headlines
- bold photography – subjects looking directly at the camera, with bold expressions (determined, confident, social)
- high contrast (in size or color of design elements)
- energetic composition
- white space, breathing room, around elements of the design
- clean, fresh design aesthetic
- photography showing large, open backgrounds – avoid tight spaces and tightly-cropped subjects
- depict new ideas or unusual ways of thinking
- images of uncharted territory or the unknown
- creative, unexpected headlines that express the subject matter in a new way
- a new approach to a familiar message
- photographs taken from an unexpected angle
- photographs that show a subject looking out into the unknown, poised to start an adventure
- photographs with subjects in genuine moments of fun
- unexpected combinations of type and image
- humor in headlines and or/imagery
- pair UBC blue and white with bright, energetic colors
- use illustration with a fun mood if appropriate for the message
- content and design that pulls students in and elicits a strong emotional reaction – can’t help but smile or laugh when you look at it
- photographs showing students with diverse ethnic backgrounds working together
- when writing copy, consider language that is respectful to students of all different cultural backgrounds
- consider how an international audience would interepret any imagery that we use
- when choosing colors in a design, consider the meaning of different colors in different cultures
- use our communications pieces to invite students into a dialogue about the subject matter
- accurately depict student life at UBC
Designing to a Tier One standard
When working on any communications piece, we should ask ourselves, does it look “Tier One”? Does it represent the high-quality, globally respected experience that UBC offers? Is it polished and sophisticated? Polished and sophisticated doesn’t have to be in opposition to the fresh, youthful visual style of Student Services publications – it can be expressed through:
- concise, smart, well-written headlines,
- high-quality photography,
- a well-thought out visual concept,
- a clear communication objective,
- and high production values.
All of these can apply regardless of the story being told or visual style being used. It’s a very useful measure for evaluating a potential design concept – Is it tier one? Will it add to UBC’s reputation as Tier One, or detract from it?
See Brand Communication and Design Principles, under the heading Design Content and Style for more discussion of what Tier One communications look like.