McGill University

Branding guidelines rework

With some 39,500 students and 250,000 living alumni, and a reputation for excellence that reaches around the globe, McGill has carved out a spot among the world’s greatest universities. The Communications group wanted to reaffirm their branding and presence by redesigning the branding guidelines.

The existing branding guidelines in 2010 was an impressive and comprehensive guide to using McGill’s symbols. However reading and understanding was somewhat labour intensive due to many factors. Starting with a sepia-coloured cover and its intimidating complicated drawings the guide resembled more a historical technical drawing manual than a branding style guide. Nobody wanted to open the book. In general the guide was text heavy expounding on the history of McGill (many fine facts but not the right place). The text contained many adjectives, qualifiers and self-defending terms that made the content hard to absorb.

We redesigned the guidelines making them contemporary, easy to read and understand. Best of all, people actually wanted to open the book and get inspired.