The Future Hub
What is the Future hub?
Great Annual Savings created a work experience scheme in partnership with Sunderland and Hartlepool colleges. Students of all ages could gain real world experience in a work place, improving their communication skills and self confidence in the process.
How did I help?
I was tasked with helping to decide on a name and create a logo with brand guidelines. The in-house marketing team at Great Annual Savings held some brainstorming sessions to come up with a name, we narrowed it down to three options; The GAS Academy, Head Start Hub and The Future Hub. In order to narrow it down to one name, I created some logo concepts for each idea, this helped us get a feel for the character of the business and therefore help us pick a name.
Here are the first round of logo ideas.
As you can see the GAS Academy went for a rather obvious US college vibe, using traditional heritage school badges as the foundation for the logo mark. We felt this idea was too ‘cheesy’ and quickly eliminated it from the running. We also eliminated Logo #02B for the same cheesy reasons, it looked too much like the film, Back to the Future.
The Head Start Hub options were more popular, however, we felt they were too contemporary – we wanted to get the balance right between attracting young people while remaining professional.
The Future Hub Logo# 02A is based on a neon sign in Sea View HQ (the Great Annual Savings head offices), that connection made this logo a popular choice, so this is the option we chose to explore.
Round 2
So, running with the neon theme and keeping the form of the logo circular like the ‘GAS G’ I came up with some more concepts. The overall winner was Logo #01 which is essentially the Great Annual Savings logo but with the logomark and lettering made from neon lighting and the ‘G’ which also looks like an arrow, turned around, to represent the next generation workforce coming though.
I think the reason this logo ended up being the final logo was all down to familiarity. This underlines the importance of consistency in a brand, if people are familiar with something they feel comfortable and therefor are much more trusting.
Executions
Once we had the logo we could get on with creating an online presence. Throughout the brainstorming sessions the idea of creating a spark to ignite a young person’s future career often came up, I chose to use this inspiration to create a short animated intro to be placed on landing pages where college students could sign up and be considered for the work experience scheme.
The final part of the branding project was to create the Hubs themselves, by applying signage and décor to sections of Sunderland and Hartlepool colleges.
The Outcome
In the space of six months, 221 students used the landing pages to apply for a position at the Future Hub. The Future Hub is now an established program within the colleges that creates working opportunities for young people in the North East. The students who attended agreed that their experience at the Future Hub helped improve their confidence and added skills to their CV, which in turn helped them succeed in job interviews. Two of the students impressed so much they went on to a full-time position at Great Annual Savings. There are now plans to open a third Future Hub at Redcar and Cleveland College.