I am currently on retainer with Edumaxi, working on a variety of design needs including instructional design, book designs and branding work for their clients. I was also tasked with giving them themselves an updated identity.

They are an established New Zealand-based company with an impressive list of global clients including most of the major private education providers in Asia, McGraw-Hill Education amongst others.They operate two branches, educational design and corporate consulting and as they grow and their profile increases there was need to better and more clearly represent themselves with two distinct faces that belonged to a cohesive whole. As well as a new hierarchy, they wanted a more contemporary and striking logo and palette.

Since their core values revolve around education, shared knowledge and support (hence the group of abstract figures huddled-up in the centre of their original logotype), it was important to keep some visual metaphor for this while simplifying and becoming more memorable. We settled on this clustered primary circles direction.

Part of my pitch to them:

...Circles represent completeness and inclusivity; overlapping and interlocking forms implying collectivity and connectivity. You are a multi-faceted organisation with global reach... The logo mark can be decoded as an abstracted group of individuals, colleagues or partners, equally they can be viewed as spheres of influence...

The typography is a Clarendon face. It obviously has a traditional 'established' look and feel but of course is much bolder and punchier than a lighter serif would be; this speaks to the aspect of their market where they should not appear too sober and corporate - it should convey an air of established success, while still seeming human and approachable. To this last requirement, the lively high chroma palette helps the overall weight of the type seem friendlier. I enjoyed working on this and feel it's a pretty strong and fitting brand mark.

Here's some exerts from the guidelines: