Denver Public Schools Branding

The Background

Denver Public Schools (DPS) was in need of a standardized visual brand and comprehensive brand standards for both internal and external audiences. As a large district with lots of moving parts, many offshoot brands had developed over the years that lacked alignment across the organization.

We set out to create a unified brand experience across all of our channels in order to build credibility for the district and give families the reassurance that DPS was behind all of our efforts. 

The Details

I led the team in developing the organization's first comprehensive internal and external brand guidelines, and as we defined our brand voice, tone and editorial style guide.

Our work was built on the idea that we are all one DPS – and we wanted to ensure that stakeholders always made the important connection of the work happening across the district, using the DPS brand as that glue. 

We launched the new brand guidelines and resources over an 8-week period through a newsletter campaign, in-person events, branding workshops and trainings. We rolled out branded templates, a robust photo and icon library, new business cards, email signatures, and more to help create high-quality collateral and consistent communications across touchpoints.

Elevating the brand to achieve consistency and unity across the district was perhaps one of my greatest accomplishments at DPS. A strong brand helped us build trust, credibility and recognition among all of DPS' stakeholders.