How to Make a Template for Uniqueness

Engage Georgia® Visual Identity

Client: University of Georgia Office of Instruction

Role: Designer

The UGA Office of Instruction is in charge of what’s called Experiential Learning. Every undergraduate student needed to take a certain amount of course credits/do a certain amount of volunteer work that counted as immersive, real-world experiences to graduate. The two problems: they didn’t know where to find opportunities that would count as EL, and they weren’t sure they wanted to commit once they found something.

That second problem was mine to solve. The Office of Instruction had created a website that helped students find EL opportunities, and now they needed to create a visual brand around it to encourage students to explore them. The name they wanted to use was Engage Georgia. I knew most students had no interest in Experiential Learning; they were just looking to fulfill the graduation requirement. But I knew from personal experience that they could find something they’re passionate about, if only they looked. So I came up with a metaphor for these unexpected connections that could be made.

Pairing the two words “engage” and “Georgia,” I connected common letters between the two with lines, creating a pattern that I thought to be abstract-y and minimalistic-y enough for millennials to at least pause and look at. And instantly I knew I could expand this out to more words to create a unique line pattern each time. “Engage Research,” “Engage Government,” “Engage Art.” A metaphor for beauty that occurs when you bring two unexpected things together.

I then created a sentence structure to be used for headlines: “Name engaged subject.”

After creating a few example posters, I went on to create a style guide for the identity, since I’d be handing it off to a different department. The style guide included an overview of the idea, an explanation of the sentence structure, and example applications.

Ultimately, the Office of Instruction decided to go with a different design idea, my secondary option. This was one of the first big cross-campus projects I had been a part of, though, so I’m proud to have my work out there. The website is here.