Atomicdust Gives Parkway Schools a New Brand
Parkway School District came to us for help changing the perception of their Career & Technical Education, or CTE, department, and we were happy to assist. It’s no secret that most school websites and marketing materials are traditionally bland and understandably reserved. But we don’t think that has to be the case, and neither did Parkway.
When the CTE department was founded, its main courses were shop and home economics. Over the past few years, the program has grown into something more. Parkway CTE now houses courses for business, marketing, IT, technology and engineering, culinary arts, teaching, fashion and health. Those are the kind of courses that we’d take. So we wanted to create a message that we – and our younger selves – would relate to and connect with, all with the goal of changing perceptions.
Parkway CTE is ahead of the curve when it comes to offering courses for college credit and preparing students for careers. We took that fact and anchored the message with the tagline “Get ready.” Get ready for college, for careers, for more challenges, and get ready for the Parkway CTE courses themselves. To reinforce the tagline, we created a supporting message: “Parkway CTE shows a bigger view of the world to students who are ready for it.”
We started designing around that message and built out creative expressions for a marketing plan – posters for hallways and classrooms, email templates, and a website for students, parents and teachers.
From culinary arts to fashion, every set of CTE courses has an individual color that fits in with the updated look and feel of the entire department. Part of our goal was to create a new, overarching look for the department, and find a manageable way to tell each division of CTE apart. Bold, complementary colors helped us do just that.
We never sought out to convince every student walking down the hall to sign up for all available CTE courses. We simply wanted to give students the extra validation and encouragement they needed to give it a shot – if they’re ready for it. Parkway CTE’s new look and message helps the program stand out as more modern, and reinforces that message for students and their parents.
