Brand Guidelines for Littletown Primary School, Honiton

Back in 2017 the nursery at Littletown Primary School Honiton was taken over by a new manager. 

My brief was simple, we need to be rejuvenated, refreshed and priority was to increase pupil numbers.

With new management and new equipment, a new ethos was created. The enthusiasm was infectious and I wanted this passion and care which the new manager had for the nursery to show through in its branding.

The school has a very natural and maternal feel and I wanted to represent this in the brand. The main school logo shows an oak tree, so it seemed only fitting that we would use an acorn accompanied by the corporate font but complimented by a more playful typeface for “Nursery”. 

I spent careful attention to the ‘colour ways’ used and wanted a natural look and feel to be evident. With the school having great out door areas, with nature being such a big part I introduced a mascot into the design in the form of a little red bird. This brand element would be used to carry any call to action elements in the form of banners etc. 

Brand items that were created included a 16-page nursery prospectus that was available for print and also as a PDF download from the school website. Other items included publicity materials such as road side banners and posters. 

Since producing the rebrand, pupil intake has increased and they are now at capacity. This is all thanks to the staff but also creating a brand image for the Nursery that best reflects the ethos of the teaching staff and school.

Review from Littletown Primary School Manager:

"The brief was to spread the word about our nursery increasing its opening hours whilst at the same time conveying to parents our ethos and USP.

As a nursery we felt we lacked an identity and brand. Although part of the main school we realised we were in competition with private nurseries in the area, whose marketing was much more tailored to the nursery aspects.
We wanted to work with a designer and company who would take on board all the aspects of our nursery that are unique to us and would find a way to communicate these to parents whilst at the same time conveying our ethos of being nurturing, part of the community and a partner with parents in the education of their children.

Our nursery has many USP’s including a purpose-built building, backing onto a woodland area, benefiting from a newly refurbished large outdoor area and many links with the main school of which we are a part.  We wanted everything from our logo and banners, to our posters and prospectus to convey this information to our parents.

I first met with the designer to discuss ‘Littletown Nursery’, what we felt made us different from other nurseries in the area, what we wanted to communicate through our ‘branding’, the purpose of our new marketing materials and how best we could do this.  We really felt the designer listened carefully to our thoughts and ideas, and was enthusiastic in what he felt he could achieve for us.

He then came back to us with various branding ‘looks’ including logos, of which one logo and style stood out instantly.  The designer had used our unique woodland setting, aspects from the schools tree logo, and our request for bright colours to design a background style that could be used across all our marketing materials including banners, posters, leaflets and a prospectus.  We had a couple of tweaks we wanted to make, which the designer attended to swiftly.  Our new ‘branding’ and logo were introduced last spring in order to market to September 2017 starters.  It was used for large banners both in the town and outside the school, posters, leaflets, an advert in the local newspaper and then throughout our prospectus.

Our nursery now feels like it has a proper identity and on an equal business footing with the other private nurseries in the town.  Our intake increased by 25% this year, which in part we attribute to our increased and improved marketing.  Nothing was too much trouble for the design team at Creative Solutions, and we could not recommend them highly enough."

To find out more about working with our graphic design team, speak to us by calling 01297 630130 or email us at sales@creativesolutions.co.uk.