CCS Health Services Branding Initiative
In 2020, I led a brand identity initiative for the Columbus City Schools Health Services Department in order to help differentiate important health documents from other school work.
COLUMBUS CITY SCHOOLS HEALTH SERVICES
The approach
While working as a registered school nurse for Columbus City Schools, one of our main challenges was obtaining completed health documents from parents. I worked for a school where a large percentage of the student body did not have English as their first language. When reaching out to these families through the help of a translator, the main reason for not completing these medical forms was that they simply did not know they were important forms that needed to be returned. Because parents receive large amounts of paperwork in their child’s “take home” folder every day, we needed a way to differentiate documents coming from the school nurse. This is where I came up with the idea to create a brand identity for the Health Services Department within the Columbus City Schools brand that will be applied to all our documents; a visual mark that can be easily recognized by families from all language backgrounds.
The process
At the time, I was employed as a school nurse and thus had to go through the marketing team in order to get this approved. With the Columbus City Schools brand in mind, I provided several options. After much back and forth communication, we landing on the final design with a stethoscope wrapped around the Columbus City School’s iconic apple logo.
Implementation
With the brand identity established, we were able to put it into practice. The timing couldn’t have been more perfect. With the COVID-19 pandemic in full swing, it was more important than ever to make sure students were up to date on their immunizations. The new brand identity, helped to make this messaging stand out on the Columbus City School’s website. In addition to the website, the logo was applied to all medical forms and our school nurses got branded t-shirts and masks.
Iconography
Along with the brand identity, I created iconography to further aid in communication with families from different language backgrounds. These icons were then used on our forms going out to parents.
