Academy of Sustainable Communities
Ask: What if? Creating a sustainable brand and website
Civil engineering, charity work, town planning and neighbourhood management are all jobs that make a real difference. The Academy for Sustainable Communities asked us to create a distinctive brand to get people excited and enthused about these and other careers in sustainable communities - a challenge made all the more difficult with a target audience of 16 - 25 year olds.
Ask: What if? is designed to be different. It's a community of people who talk about their jobs and provide an opportunity for young people who want to make a difference to interact and find out more.
The name, logo and brand elements were all designed to appeal to the age group, using bright colours and strong typography, but with a 'grown up' feel and strong, down-to-earth copywriting style. We translated the brand across into printed careers guides, promotional materials, exhibitions, online advertising, the web and brand guidelines.
The website is designed to be innovative in its sector. New technologies such as blogging, tagging, mashups and streaming media have created a social networking site where young people can ask questions and find answers or watch video diaries and read other people's stories. A community of experts who work in the careers 'tell it like it is' and are on hand to answer questions and get involved in discussion topics relating to sustainable communities. Their video diaries give a taste of what the job involves, and the careers pages give straightforward facts and figures about salary, education requirements, and opportunities, as well as links to other sites to take the next step in pursuing the career.
People can also post photos and videos of things that they love or hate in their community, and they are rated as others vote on them. It's a great way to get people talking about what's happening in their local area while raising awareness of how critical careers in sustainable communities are.
The Ask: What if? Website was nominated for the British Interactive Media Association for best Government and Information award 2007.
