HSE Schools Move Closer to Branding, Web Site Redesign

Brittany Kaelin of Miles Herndon explains concepts her firm proposes based on group discussions with local people and phone interviews, as HSE Schools Director of Community Relations Emily Pace Abbotts looks on.

In late June of this year, the Hamilton Southeastern (HSE) School District agreed to hire the private firms of MilesHerndon and BitWise to work on branding the school system and updating the district’s Web presence.  Nearly six months later, MilesHerndon is presenting some concepts to the school board.  BitWise is not quite ready to preview Web site concepts until the branding decisions are made.

School board members grappled with the choices of logos for the entire school district and individual schools at a Tuesday morning work session.  After a lengthy discussion, MilesHerndon was given an idea of how to come up with a final version of the logo and phrases to brand the local school system.

The next step is for school administrators to work with the private firms and finalize the logo and phrases to identify the Hamilton Southeastern Schools.

MilesHerndon told board members it had conducted a number of “discovery group” sessions to get some idea how to design the logo and phrasing.  The firm also conducted phone interviews with community members within the school district.

BitWise told board members they are not ready to present a new Web site design until Miles Herndon completes its work on the logo and phrasing.

Two of the phrasing options proposed by MilesHerndon are:

Community of Thoughts – and Actions

Inspiring Learning    

At the June 28th session, the board approved contracts with MilesHerndon and BitWise.  $50,000 goes to MilesHerndon for the branding and $98,599 to BitWise for the Web site redesign, for a total of $148,599.