Challenge: I was asked to brand and create signage in conjunction with the opening of Futures, a branch of Severndale Specialist Academy for pupils aged 16 – 25, the first of its kind, situated on a mainstream college campus. 

Insight: Futures is a campus for 16-25 year old special needs students, an extension of Severndale Specialist Academy, the biggest Special School in the UK. The building designed for the 21st century has a modern feel to it accessible to all needs. Futures helps these students with life skills and introduces them to the public and to the workplace, allowing them to make merchandise to sell in a shop they own in the local town, there is also a café at Futures which is run by the students and caters the Mainstream College students. My aim was to create a futuristic typeface that represents the ethos, the future is what you make it.

Solution: I used the typeface ‘Fairview’, a futuristic typeface that incorporates the element of striving forwards towards the future. The arrow represents the ethos of striving forwards. The critical element of the signage was that it represented a modern feel but also provided a vital direction in a straightforward way for the pupils. 

Although I designed the original signage, the final production was not under my control so the design was altered and became less effective because of this.