Grow By Degrees, a Campaign of the Virginia Business Higher Education Council
Background: In 2009, PUNCH was hired to design and produce a logo and Web site for Grow By Degrees, a campaign of the Virginia Business Higher Education Council (VBHEC). The purpose of Grow By Degrees is to fuel Virginia’s strong recovery and sustained economic growth through high-impact investments and innovations in our public colleges, universities, and community colleges, which needed to be conveyed through both the Web site and the logo.
Challenge: PUNCH was working under intense deadlines. The client had a launch date set in stone, yet the name “Grow By Degrees” had yet to be established and content was still in production. This meant beginning design without a name.
Another challenge was the broad audience they were seeking—legislators, students, and schools.
Execution: The client wanted to brand their coalition with a logo icon but was unsure of what the icon should be. After several rounds of designs and color palates, they chose one that represented their positive goals for the students and universities/colleges of Virginia. This also set the tone of the site.
Once copy was received, we helped them organize their ideas and content. With so much to say, it was important that we didn’t overwhelm viewers with huge text pages. Plus, this is a serious subject, but the site didn’t need to look too conservative. We kept the client direction and audience in mind and designed a warm, inviting, and positive site that is approachable by a lot of different groups.
Additionally, interactivity for the viewers was very important to the client. The site required a social media module, extensive forms and questionnaires, and CMS for regular news and video updates. We worked closely with our programmer to implement the requirements.
Impact: PUNCH designed a well-defined logo and icon, and a clean, easy to navigate Web site. Despite challenges and changes along the way, the site went live as scheduled and the client was thrilled with the outcome.
