Cuesta College Collateral Branding
When I joined the Marketing and Communications department at Cuesta College, their print collateral lacked a unified style. I worked to establish and standardize a brand voice, ensuring all communication materials have cohesive messaging and a consistent look and feel. As the one-and-only graphic design staff on the campus of approximately 13,000 students, my responsibility stretched from a small handout for the Student Health Center and a booklet for Student Services to Instagram graphics, magazine ads, and OOH billboards.
Inspired by the Faces of New York book, we started posting black and white portraits of students, faculties and staffs on Instagram. Eventually we decided that we’d go with this style for Outreach items, such as enrollment postcards and billboards. The goal is to give us a sophisticated look to convey the quality education and support we offer at Cuesta College, as well as to feature the real people on campus.
This is another billboard in the new look. The simple graphic with large typography stood out from other busy billboards.
An election-day post—I tried to make it look calm.
These were the initial attempts to give the College collateral a brand look-and-feel.
The Harold J. Miossi Art Gallery at Cuesta College had a completely independent look and feel. Still, I tried to incorporate the general “Cuesta-look” so it sends a message that it is a part of the College. This piece received the third-place award from the Community College Public Relations Organization (CCPRO).
A few examples of the Art Gallery event posters. The client request was to make each poster/postcard design unique to the show, that reflects the artists works.
A few examples of the Performing Arts Center event posters.
The Community Programs at Cuesta College is run financially independent from the College, and the challenge was to give them a unique look-and-feel which isn’t too far from the overall Cuesta branding. I use the secondary brand typeface to make the connection with the general “Cuesta-look.” These are distributed to about 31,000 households, mainly in San Luis Obispo County.