University of Reading Careers supports its students in achieving their potential and prepares them for the competitive employment market. Struggling with low levels of visibility and engagement, Reading needed to cut through the ‘noise’ of wider university messaging.

IE Brand began with audience listening through workshops with student, staff and Student's Union representatives, which revealed that Reading students needed a combination of gentle coaxing and a firm kick-up-the-backside. This informed a Jekyll and Hyde approach to the new brand. IE Brand created a set of beautiful, distinctive visual assets carrying powerful messages to support a host of campaigns and events throughout the academic year.

In the two years since the rebrand, the number of individual students taking advantage of appointments with the careers service have increased by more than 30%.

Read more about Reading's careers brand or explore IE's other rebranding work with university careers services.

IE Brand created the dynamic, colourful new brand and website for the UCD Innovation Academy. Read the website case study. 

IE Brand had also previously renamed and rebranded The Career Development Centre at University College Dublin, relaunching it as UCD Careers Network with a new website. UCD is the 12th university careers service to be rebranded by IE – and our first outside of the UK. Read more about UCD's Careers Network brand or explore IE's other rebranding work with university careers services.

Imperial College London’s Careers Service provides varied and comprehensive careers guidance, information and a vacancy service to students and alumni at the university.

Stakeholder research showed that the service was suffering lack of understanding and student recognition. Beginning with a Strategy Workshop to the Career team, IE Brand went on to create a new visual identity for the service to raise awareness in a ‘noisy’ market.

IE Brand’s work resulted in a clear strategy, a newly expressed brand proposition and a striking new visual identity. We created brand guidelines detailing how to express the identity when working across the university and within individual faculties, as well as branded collateral, banners and magazine templates. Awareness and engagement levels among students increased, while careers staff confidence improved dramatically. 

Read more about ICL's careers brand or explore IE's other rebranding work with university careers services.

Following a substantial restructure and investment programme the University of Birmingham’s Careers & Employability Centre recognised that a rebrand – including a new name – was going to be vital in helping them communicate organisational change.

They wanted to raise awareness and engagement levels and achieve ambitious targets for student satisfaction, employer ranking and national awards. Immersing ourselves in the university's audience research and value proposition work, IE Brand identified the brand's essence – connectivity, which led to a new name – Careers Network – and audience-specific straplines for students, staff and employers. 

We then created a distinctive visual identity using 3D, photographic typography and a rich set of graphical assets to embody the ‘real voices’ of students. Student engagement increased by 289% and the work won two European Transform Awards. 

Read more about Birmingham's Careers Network brand or explore IE's other rebranding work with university careers services.

University of Aberdeen Careers Service wanted to invigorate its brand. While they had a strong foundation on which to build, they wanted to evolve the brand identity to improve awareness and engagement, on and off campus.

Following a listening exercise, IE Brand gauged key stakeholder values and provided a simple, succinct and concise report, from which Aberdeen could benchmark their performance and IE’s design team could develop the new visual identity.

IE brand then created a set of compelling visual assets and a new brand identity to improve the impact and effectiveness of the service, while honouring the university’s existing brand guidelines. The new brand features the prominent use of a chevron, a heraldic symbol lifted from the University of Aberdeen’s traditional crest, and provides clarity, consistency and flexibility across a range of collateral.

Explore IE's rebranding work with Aberdeen and other university careers services.

Plymouth Marjon University needed a recognisable and consistent visual signature across all its employability comms – whether they come from the careers service, or from
Academic departments. The Futures brand needed to conform to the spirit of the University's brand guidelines, while allowing for the fact that the guidelines allow for a degree of innovation, where appropriate and impactful. 

Futures offers a personalised, student-centred approach to employability, tailor-made to each student. In common with other University Careers Services, Futures places a healthy focus on employability, and offers support and guidance to everyone that comes through its doors (and even those that don’t). But there’s one crucial belief that shines through: They believe that life’s an adventure, and that the key to happiness is finding a career that you love.

The brand's tone is conversational, informal and quirky. The visual identity is distinctive and eye catching – with messages that follow suit. Sometimes be seen as ‘the underdog’, beneath the surface Marjon is bold and confident – encapsulated in the Futures messaging: ‘I Am Marjon’. Marjon students are determined to succeed, and the Futures team helps to make that happen.

Explore IE's other rebranding work with university careers services.

Aston Careers + Placements service offers students careers advice and placement opportunities to help them best prepare for life after university.

Aston Careers, Placements and Employability (as it was then known) was already a sector-leading, highly successful service, but they recognised that they were suffering from poor brand recognition and inconsistent campaigns. IE Brand was tasked with creating a distinctive brand identity.

We developed an urban, edgy visual style and arresting statements to engage students at a highly emotive level. The work drove an 84.5% increase in attendance at The Placements Fair and was Highly Commended for Best Use of a Visual Property at the Transform Awards Europe 2015. 

We've also worked closely with Aston as part of our work on the Goldman Sachs 10,000 Small Businesses programme. 

Read more about Aston's Careers + Placements brand or explore IE's other rebranding work with university careers services.

We're working with Maynooth University to create a compelling brand for their careers service.