A cohesive look for an educational YouTube channel
BACKGROUND
Thais is a school mediator that studied psychoanalysis, pedagogy and fine arts. She decided to start this YouTube channel after noticing the struggles of online classes as well as the difficulties faced by the parents teaching their own children during the pandemic. She saw the channel as an opportunity to promote her work, but mainly as a way to help parents and teachers to adapt in remote teaching. Her channel focus is providing content about children’s developmental issues and specific learning disabilities like Autism, Down Syndrome, Williams and ADHD, among others.
CHALLENGE
The YouTube channel did not have a brand identity, the client did not know about consistency, graphic communications nor the importance of brand guidelines. The main challenges were:
• Short time-frame research: to use YouTube channel analytics to define targeted audience and develop brand identity in a short period of time;
• Brand Identity: to create and select the whole scope of the brand, like font, colour palette, communications
template, aiming at brand consistency and a professional look;
• Budget restrictions: photo research through a low cost solution with the use of stock imagery;
PROCESS
After continuously meeting with the client, it became clear that the brand positioning strategy was under the “learning and sharing” theme, and that the new brand identity should emphasize the production of content as something accessible for all.
Based on some of YouTube's analytics data and secondary research, we were able to determine that the audience is composed of 95% women, being 90% from Brazil, (the channel is also reaching countries like Portugal, Canada, India and Indonesia) between 35 to 55 years old, who are professionals like teachers, school mediators, psychology students and parents of special children. Based on that, design choices were made to define the channel marketing communications strategy and selection of graphic elements.
RESULTS
We decided to use playful colours to give an energetic tone to the channel, also composing the theme by portraying children in learning environments, both in school and at home. The palette selection counts with saturated colours like pink, orange, green, blue, also black and white for neutrality/balance, and salmon to soften a little bit the overall look. The channel mood conveys having fun while learning new things.
Color palette
For typography, a traditional and elegant serif font (Libre Bodoni) was selected for first titles, and a modern and friendly non-serif font (Swiss721 Blk BT) for secondary ones. The client wanted a clean and simple look for the flyer, so we opted in using straightforward text elements and the hierarchy was achieved by font case and style variations, combined with a full-bleed colour background, and a cropped image as graphic element, creating a stronger connection with its audience.
Website Visual Identity
The client wanted to include the old logo design in the new brand identity so we repurposed it as an emblem/ information tag, to use in video flyers and covers. The new lettermark logo was developed by using the client’s initials: the T and the J, in a black and elegant typeface (Libre Bodoni) on top of a white background, circled by a pink frame. Brand consistency should be applied in all social media postings: Instagram, Facebook, LinkedIn and YouTube Community channel; also in the video support material like the cover and storyboard elements, while keeping the video flow interesting for its audience. All the music used in the videos was made by a group specialized in children with developmental issues or with learning disabilities, called FBS Educação e Música.
From the moment this brand identity went live, we noticed a jump in the first 3 weeks from 60 to 1,700
subscribers, and to more than 3,200 at the moment. The YouTube channel shows a high potential for growing,
because a majority of 61% of video viewers are not subscribed to the channel yet.
Flyers developed for videos release