When I joined Harvard Kennedy School’s creative team, the Office of Communications and Public Affairs was in the process of updating their communications and brand guidelines. In my role, as the designer for the Degree Programs and Student Affairs group, I adopted and helped extend these new guidelines.
I took on two important student communications: the HKS Student Handbook and Doctoral Program Handbook. Owned by different subgroups, their design was divergent and outdated.
These books, filled with school policies and regulations, are primarily designed as digitally accessible pdfs, but I factored in the possibility of producing them as printed handbooks as well. Bold divider pages and tabs make the books friendly and easy to navigate. The once divergent handbooks now clearly look like two parts of a whole.
Harvard Kennedy School offers four distinct master's degree programs: Master is Public Policy (MPP), Master in Public Administration (MPA), Mid-Career Master in Public Administration, and Master in Public Administration International Development. In addition, HKS has Doctoral Degree Programs. After having the opportunity to work with the degree program teams for a couple years, it became clear to me that their programs' print and digital communications would benefit from greater visual consistency across programs.
In partnership with my Marketing and Communications manager, I worked to develop and socialize “sub-brands” that promote overall HKS brand consistency while differentiating the degree programs. The degree program branding utilizes bold colors and typography. This branding now extends to campus maps, advising guides, folders, email banners, cross-campus digital screen announcements, Zoom backgrounds, PowerPoint templates, event signage, t-shirts, name badges, and more.
Branding the degree program communications and goods has been particularly successful in elevating marquee events such as Orientation and Commencement.
Now, I’m working with the offices that DPSA serves such as the Office of Career Advancement, Office of Enrollment Services, and Office of Student Services to create similar brand consistency.
