Inchstones Ed Tech App - Logo and Visual Identity

Inchstones

It is an app for educators in Special Education that helps them to track progress for Special Education students and to communicate in real time to parents and administrators. It also allows for celebrating successes for student progress and it has a great data collection aspect so progress and trends can be tracked at the individual student, classroom, school and district level.

Inchstones Visual Identity Brief
August, 2018

Background: Inchstones is a promising new Ed Tech startup with a mission to help educators and families of special education students. The inchstones app enables appropriate benchmarking, tracking and communications, for the early intervention stage of education and development. Over time, it will expand in terms of both the categories of special education it addresses and the age groups.

Strategy: Inchstones is starting from scratch and building a brand and an MVP. The leadership team is looking to put a strong foundation into place that will facilitate a successful launch and marketing effort. To that end, we have created a brand value proposition and messaging document to distill key inputs for visual identity. The next component of the strategy is the Visual Identity which is the main deliverable of this brief.

Main Deliverable: Visual Identity
The Visual Identity work must embody and distill the qualities and the essence of the brand and facilitate Inchstone communicating to its audiences in a consistent way.

Components to include:
Logo design
Logo Icon for social media and app store purposes
Mood Board and/or Brand Guidelines with color palette, font standards and suggested uses for them.

The following elements from Inchstones’ Brand Value Proposition will be helpful to designers in developing this work.

Brand Promise: Inchstones provides the standards and roadmap for every child to learn, regardless of their disability.

Target Audiences:
Occupations: Administrators, Teachers, Parents and State Agencies

Gender: Majority Female** - Important to note that while we are not looking for design to stereotype female design or aesthetics, we do need to appeal to a largely female audience.

Tone of Voice: Credible, Supportive, Reassuring, Helpful, Hopeful, Encouraging, Respectful, Wise, Modern, High Tech, Cool

Visual References: Labrador retriever with wheels, Compass. Please note this does not mean that we expect or want these references to be included in logo design. This information is to help provide a sense of what the app does and how the internal team thinks about it.

Elevator Pitch: Special Education professionals and parents have faced significant and fundamental challenges around the lack of standards, assessments and reporting tools to facilitate communication, accountability and recognition of progress for students. In a post Endrew F era, the challenges are even more acute and the stakes are higher, placing a mandate on accountability without addressing the standards or tools deficits, creating an environment focused on compliance vs outcomes, and leaving educators to have to fend and defend for themselves. Inchstones was created by members of the special education community who recognized the challenges and sought to remedy these issues. Creating much needed standards and a roadmap by disability for special educators, Inchstones uses smart phone technology to make documenting, communicating and celebrating progress as simple as sending a text. Educators can report and communicate to parents and administrators in real time. Parents are fully informed of their children’s progress and can join educators and students in recognizing their accomplishments. Admins can aggregate data into reports at a classroom, school or even district level. The game is changing for Special Education. Inchstone moves the focus from compliance to outcomes based Special Education.

Differentiators & Services to Support:
Special Education focus. Will cover all Special Ed disabilities.
Birth through high school.
It’s an app. It’s simple and intuitive.
Inchstones proprietary patent
Inchstones defines the standards for each disability, providing the foundation for the IEP process.
Learning roadmap by individual student
Reporting at individual and aggregate levels
Travels with the student, cloud based
Collaborative communication tool promotes partnership with parents
Celebration and recognition elements

Brand Value Proposition Document: Visual Identity tournament participants should read the attached, confidential brand value proposition document, which will further assist in understanding the app and delivering designs that best reflect Inchstones.

Preferences:
Bright, Light, Contrasting Font and Buttons, Crisp Images, Not heavy, not wordy

Our approach to visual identity:
1. Simple- Simple logos are recognized quickly. The simplest logos are the ones people remember the most.
2. Scalable- A great logo should be simple enough to be scaled down or up and still look good.
3. Memorable- A great logo should be impactful. Leave a positive impression.
4. Versatile- A great logo should look equally good on any web device, print material or tee shirt.
4.5. Relevant- Ideally, it should be relevant; it has to have meaning that relates to the work we are doing.

Website references: The look and feel of these logos and web designs have been identified as appealing reference points for this exercise.

https://mangolanguages.com/
https://gusto.com/
ttps://evernote.com/
https://www.legalzoom.com/
https://freshdesk.com/
https://www.everydollar.com/
https://stripe.com/

Additional Comments: We are looking forward to receiving designs. We will narrow down and look to work with a designer to refine the logo and visual identity work to best suit our needs. We anticipate four rounds to get to a finished product.

Timing: We would like to see a first round of designs by Tuesday, August 7th if possible.