StudioBand® fuse both the heritage and future-focus of Annesley Junior School in their bright rebrand

Imagined by Adelaide-based design agency StudioBand®, the brand refresh for Annesley Junior School brings a contemporary new look to one of South Australia’s fastest growing independent schools. “The school’s approach to early years education is highly progressive,” Managing & Creative Director Chris Cooper reveals. “Their underpinning purpose is centred around innovation and engaging and empowering the students in the here and now, in order to prepare them for their future learning journey.” Working with school leadership, alongside the school’s council and internal stakeholders, the task at hand was to develop and design the strategy and visual identity that not only honoured and reflected the school’s rich history, but also distilled their unique approach to education. “It had to be innovative,” Cooper adds. To capture the energy and spirit of Annesley Junior School, StudioBand® decided to create a custom display typeface. “Using the school’s values as the foundation, we developed a set of pictograms that represented each of the values,” Cooper explains. “Whilst abstract in its connection to the values, the approach gave us an interesting set of patterns that we were able to use to begin to develop the characters and forms.” From there, the team applied patterns to the letterforms, culminating in a bold and expressive typeface – Gillingham Display. In addition to the custom typeface, StudioBand® also needed a supporting typeface that would contrast and complement the expressive nature of the display font. They chose Poppins, a sans serif font, as it not only fulfilled these requirements but was also readily available for internal and external usage. When it came to developing a fitting colour palette, StudioBand® chose to retain the rich maroon and pink from the original brand, which had been in use for over 20 years. These colours held significant equity and were a vital part of the school’s identity. For the secondary palette, StudioBand® engaged with the students through an interactive process. Teachers asked the students a series of questions, and the students responded by creating colourful and expressive drawings. “The drawings were all highly colourful and extremely expressive, which gave us the opportunity to select a comprehensive secondary palette,” Cooper tells us.