Bedales Schools

Nurturing a leading school brand

Bedales are a very well known school with character and heritage that has earned them international recognition. We have been working together for over five years and in that time really enjoyed developing the brand. It's a great brand to work with but also one that requires care and thought in its evolution to ensure Bedales' character and ethos is truly maintained and projected. There are three different schools under the Bedales umbrella: Nursery & Pre-Prep, Prep and Senior. For each school the message and feel is slightly different to reflect the ages but the core Bedales brand runs through and unites every stage in a seamless progression.

Deliverables

Brand identity

Photography

Copywriting

Print design

Advertising

Web design

Web development

Brand refresh

We recently redesigned Bedales, Dunannie and Dunhurst prospectuses and the website following a brand refresh. Following a series of focus group sessions organised by the school, Oyster worked with Bedales to refine communications and shape key messages that reflected the focus group findings and define 'The Bedales difference'. The design style is clean with plenty of space for imagery giving the brand a sense of confidence and breathing space. Working in partnership with the Bedales marketing team and the Heads of each school, we shaped the brand to give each school the flexibility to engage with the appropriate age entry levels.

Three schools, one brand family

Dunannie Pre-Prep, Dunhurst Prep and Bedales Senior are the three schools united under the Bedales brand. Whilst their audiences share many of the same criteria for choosing a school, the educational needs of children vary at different ages. Developing the brand style to accommodate each school stage introduced some uniques in graphic treatment and colour. The guidelines were structured to give flexibility whilst also maintaining a discipline and logic that ties the styles together. This enables the user to understand how brand elements are to be used for the different schools and rules for applications of logos, fonts, layouts, imagery and graphics. As part of the process we updated each school logo to better embrace the wider Bedales brand.

Bedales heart & soul

A brand that has firmly established its character and space within the market begins to take on its own momentum. Bedales is most certainly one of those brands and their marketing team take great care to guide the brand ethos and let the character come through. Imagery is such a huge asset and it's important to let those images breath. Finding the right words and the right balance in design treatments and layout are important elements in maintaining and truly reflecting the brand proposition.

Thank you to all at Oyster for working with us and getting us to the finish line, particularly Ryan who was always diplomatic and positive about our suggestions!

Rob Reynolds, Bedales Schools

Digital brand delivery

Designing and developing the Bedales website built on the work we had done on the original website. Navigation between schools is easy and user journeys are clear and logical. The site is easy to explore, uncluttered and yet full of diverse content that allows the visitor to discover as much as they want to in any area. We have enjoyed rolling out the brand across digital platforms with easy viewing on smart phones and tablets, compelling social media and regular Open Day social media campaigns. The digital experience is so important. The experience shapes brand perceptions on many levels.

Visit site

Made for mobile

A huge number of people access information on their mobiles. We live busy lives and need to access information and make decisions on the move. As with all our websites, we designed the Bedales site to be fully responsive and translate onto mobile in a way that is user friendly and allows intuitive and fast access to the content and functionality of the website.

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