West Vancouver Schools

Challenge

West Vancouver Schools approached Straydog to re-design their brand and better position them in the market. Being a very innovative district that competes with private schools, our challenge was to build upon the brand heritage while updating the visual identity and communication platform.

When we started working with West Vancouver Schools, they were known as School District 45. This generic name lacked confidence, emotion and caused confusion with their international market as to whether they were the 45th-ranked school district! The existing lighthouse logo was outdated and did not support the innovative schools within the district.

Action

We developed a strategy around the lighthouse and the brand identity was born from the idea of bright—futures and minds of our students. The new visual identity better captures the energy, passion and progressive drive of the brand. The newly designed lighthouse is encapsulated by a crisp, contemporary shield—assisting in creating a link between private & public schools. The colours were inspired by the ocean, west coast and fit well with the West Vancouver setting. The updated font is bold and clean, flexible and timeless.

With the updated brand identity, it was important that we updated all of their marketing and communication pieces. We developed a consistent design standard and templates for documents, stationery, collateral, brochures, marketing pieces. Additionally, we built a new WordPress website for both the Regional and International market.

Outcome

Armed with a new identity and website West Vancouver Schools is ready to communicate and captivate its audience locally and across the globe, while delivering a consistent brand experience that inspires and educates.

Websites

As part of our engagement with WVS, we provided comprehensive digital strategy services for the design, development and support of 19 websites for the school district as follows:

West Vancouver Schools, Main site

The International School site