Curriculum Associates, LLC
CREATIVE LEADERSHIP / BRANDING / IDENTITY / CHANGE & PROCESS MANAGEMENT
I joined Curriculum Associates—makers of the popular i-Ready Assessment and learning software—in November of 2022 in a new role as Director of Brand. After acquiring an AI voice enablement company, there was a need to position CA as a leading Edtech company rather than the print publishing company of its past. There was an urgency to elevate all marketing materials as well as create more efficient workflows in order to establish CA as a leader in K–12 education.
Older Marketing Materials
While the i-Ready product had a style guide, the instructions within were complex and hard to keep consistent across a larger team. This combined with projects becoming immediate needs meant less time was spent on QC. Overall the marketing brand was outdated and aimed to please end users rather than our target audience who interact with it most.
Interim Brand Update
I worked alongside multiple partners and teams to put together a modernized (and simplified) set of brand guidelines that keeps gained equity while also being easier to implement for projects requiring a quick turn. These guidelines, which spanned multiple product brands, were translated into templates for consistency among expeditious projects and allowed controlled self-service.
Repositioning the i-Ready Portfolio Brand
Alongside the Director of Content and a contracted brand consultant, we took on the task of evolving the i-Ready brand to the next level and moving from a house of brands to a branded house. This would help signify to the market that i-Ready is not just assessment software, but an entire product suite.
Over the next 9 months we worked on core messaging, conducted user testing with feedback loops, and concepted a bold new way forward—entirely in-house. This process included creating a brand hierarchy system (including an endorsement strategy), organizing consistent photo shoots, a complete website overhaul, creating cohesive sub-brand product “themes”, and a revitalization of our highest equity icon—the i-Ready cube.
Taking apart the well-known cube to create something new and exciting wasn’t an easy sell, but the brand equity from having 15 million student users was obvious. So we fleshed out an entire system of deliverables to showcase the potential of going bold in a historically safe educational market. The direction embraces tech while retaining the equity of the existing i-Ready brand, and brings all product brands together in a cohesive, flexible, and ownable system— complete with branded color palettes, graphic bars, patterns, images, typography, illustrations, and templates.
The i-Ready cube is the core of the graphic assets and treatment. We found that when we the overlapped the cube’s side shapes, new colors and geometric shapes were created. We used the solid hexagon—also based on the cube proportions and soft corners—as a window to place images of students, teachers, devices, and illustrations from the product.
Digital Overhaul
The rebranding effort also required a website and social media overhaul to focus on the user experience and alignment of the brand voice. We built the system around structured content for better navigation and usability with accessibility as a priority. We designed Sitecore modules (with a headless CMS) to work together and apart—all within the branding “themes” so that products could simultaneously be individuals but also a part of the larger i-Ready family.
Event Design
Since industry conferences are a major touchpoint for our audience, we also redesigned our in-person booths and materials to create a more cohesive and interactive experience.
National Campaign Work
I collaborated with our internal Marketing team (including National Directors, VPs, and Creative), Sales, and the Product team to brainstorm solutions when bringing launching new features and brands. Each campaign was required to have preliminary brief, including a tactics, messaging, and aesthetics plan. Some examples of my team’s go-to-market campaign work are shown below.
Bringing California Mathematics to Market
Redesigning Magnetic and Mosaico as a Product Suite
Creative Leadership
In addition to bringing expertise to technical and strategic projects, it was necessary to also guide the team through multiple rounds of org, leadership, and process changes. As a fully remote team, I organized multiple in-person meetups to foster relationships, opportunities for designers to increase skillsets and practice leadership, and increased trust with transparency, allowing voices to be heard, and taking meaningful action on issues. This resulted in a 15% increase of employee satisfaction over the past 12 months and 100% retainment.
Other Notables:
Curation and design of the BrandED Newsletter—to communicate out brand updates, examples, and resources, including updates on major brand initiatives like positioning and naming exercises
For the first time, changing processes so that the Marketing team collaborates with the Product team up front on new products and features, increasing quality and consistency with art direction and planning up front, rather than reactively
Helped bring online an office hub in India to aid with creative production, including hiring creatives and streamlining workflow to increase efficiency
Enacted monotony-breakers for design staff which includes quarterly design challenges