Creating a brand focused on inspiring and unlocking children’s imaginations to build literacy skills

100 story bag and poster

The 100 Story Building is the brainchild of Jenna Williams, Lachlann Carter and Jess Tran. Williams and Carter previously formed the publishing project for young writers, Pigeon Letters, in which Tran was also heavily involved.

A centre for young writers, 100 Story Building is a special place where children from marginalised communities are given the opportunity to foster their creative voice and to have their ideas shared and respected.

A social enterprise, 100 Story Building has an aspiration to be a magnet to attract Melbourne’s creative community to mentor and collaborate with the children, parents, teachers and school communities. They offer creative writing excursions, publishing programmes, after-school activities and school holiday workshops for creative-minded kids aged 8-12 years. They also conduct writing workshops for adults interested in writing for children.

100 story logos 2

 

Challenge
Engaging and getting buy-in from numerous stakeholders including school teachers, educators, parents, aspiring writers, publishers, local community and government organisations, was imperative to the project.

For the brand to be successful it needed to emotionally connect with primary and secondary school children. They need to see this as a ‘cool’ place. It can’t feel like a charity or government organisation so we needed to break away from the visual language that would normally be associated with education and charities.

It was also critical that we didn’t make it feel too young as it needed to appeal to teenagers as well as adults. Also, while many of the programmes are targeted to children from disadvantaged, culturally and linguistically diverse communities, the brand needed to have a broader and more aspirational appeal so that it could compete with other sport, youth activities, education and school holiday programmes.

100 story book

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Strategy
“The brand positioning is centred on the belief that ‘stories change lives’. This provides us with a potent focus to inspire, empower and celebrate the importance of stories and their transformative power,” says Michael Hughes, Strategy Director and Partner, Truly Deeply.

“At the heart of brand positioning is the understanding that conceiving, crafting, sharing, telling, listening, re-telling, contributing, laughing and enjoying stories helps build literacy skills, confidence and a sense of belonging. This is fundamental to the future success of the children and also provides a broader social community benefit,” added Hughes.

100 story Business cards

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Design solution

While schools, parents and the entire community will benefit from collaborative programmes that foster literacy and life skills, the brand is unashamedly focussed on the children and designed to inspire and unlock their imaginations.

The brandmark is inspired by the language of adventure and storytelling with the zeros in the 100 designed to become cartoon like eyes that can come alive through illustrations of different characters.

“By incorporating illustrations into the brandmark, illustrators and artists have helped contribute and shape the 100 Story Brand. It also allows the children themselves to place their mark on the brand, keeps it fresh and fosters stronger collaboration with the creative community”, says Derek Carroll, Creative Director and Partner, Truly Deeply.

Deliverables
Truly Deeply defined and developed the brand strategy, positioning, visual identity and launch communication.

100 story logos 1

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Results
“Going through the strategic brand design process with Truly Deeply was essential to the articulation of our mission and organisational goals,” says Jessica Tran, Co-Founder, 100 Story Building.

“As well as creating a visual framework for our communications, the team’s talent, enthusiasm and generosity have supported us in making 100 Story Building everything we’d like it to be,” added Tran.

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