Evolving with education: Troup County School System brands the district with new vision, logo, tagline

Published 11:07 pm Tuesday, May 1, 2018

The Troup County School System has unveiled new branding.

The school system has discussed the new branding, including an enhanced logo, at several board meetings over the last year, but all of the hard work is finally complete.

“Essentially, our visual identity was dated and became lost over the years,” said Public Relations Director Yolanda Stephen. “Education looks different than it did two decades ago, but we looked the same. We needed to bring a fresh, cohesive look and feel through our vision, logo and tagline — something that our employees, students, parents, and community members can connect with.”

According to a press release, school employees knew that TCSS has evolved.

The way students learn has progressed, and the classroom atmosphere has advanced to include student-centered learning, updated technology, rigorous and relevant curricula and collaborative work spaces.

All of these elements spurred TCSS to begin “Brand the District” almost two years ago when they made a decision to shift its culture, according to a press release. After enlisting the assistance of the International Center for Leadership in Education, Stephen said the project began to take form beginning with research.

Research

Stephen said several departments worked together to research surrounding districts. Then, they utilized information from the top 25 districts in the country. Electronic surveys were sent to employees and community members and the district hosted focus groups that consisted of students, teachers, parents, business owners and community members.

A sample of questions included: What does TCSS currently look like? What do we want TCSS to look like? What do we want for all students? What attributes do we want our students to have once they graduate?

“We had a 36 percent return rate for surveys and about 350 focus group members. It was important that we heard from the community because we all have a vested interest in the educational and life success of our students,” Stephen said.

“For example, the top two words used to describe what we want graduates to be were ‘successful’ and ‘independent.’ We were able to incorporate those words and more into our new vision.”

The new TCSS vision statement is “TCSS will provide educational opportunities that inspire learners to be independent, successful and happy.”

The mission statement, goals and beliefs are to remain the same.

Logo Design

Next, TCSS high school students were asked to concept logo and other visual element designs. Stephen said two initial designs were chosen and the district began working with Perceptions Communications in Birmingham, Alabama, to bring the concepts to life.

“The feedback from the focus groups was that our new logo needed to be simple, colorful and reflect where we are going as a school system,” Stephen said.

“Therefore, the logo consists of three main elements – the mark, the signature and the tagline. It represents unity through the circular diagram, diversity through the use of bold colors, forward progress through the use of linear elements, success through the tagline and innovation through the combination of all elements.”

Students and staff also proposed tagline recommendations.

Three were submitted for the final survey and the student tagline of “Your Future Starts Today” was chosen. It is now displayed directly under the logo.

Brand the District was introduced in advance of the 2018-2019 school year to give TCSS schools and administrative offices adequate lead time to update their material or order new materials reflecting the new brand.

TCSS will use the new design simultaneously as the older version of materials and supplies are being replaced.

Troup County residents will begin seeing the new brand incorporated into online and print materials beginning July 1, 2018.

A complete webpage — to include logo, branding guidelines, photos and videos, is being created to house all district branding materials so items needed can be shared and printed on an as-needed basis.