Evolve

With college centres in Bury and Burnley, Evolve Military College was formed to deliver programmes to a wide variety of young people by utilising the skills, qualities and experience of former servicemen and women. This ensures that learners have an outstanding experience and are provided with the foundations and basic skills required for life in the armed forces.

Andrew Emmett, the Managing Director of Military Standards Training (MST), was aware that a high-quality printed advertisement would be necessary to promote and advertise his college course. Unfortunately, MST had not developed any form of brand image. To reach out to his target audience between 16 – 24 years old, Andrew chose to explore this concept further. This opened the door to rebranding MST and create a fresh new brand identity.

A key element of the rebrand was a name change to Evolve Military College. After that, it was time for the creative minds to design a logo embodying the college’s new identity and vision.

The design was to appeal to 16-24 year olds with a custom logotype created. The letter shapes were influenced by military decals, paired with a logomark. It was designed to resemble a Spartan helmet, continuing the military feel.

Think came up with a beautifully simple concept to tell the story. The theme we worked with was that EMC helps teenagers become a better version of themselves through building their self-belief. We wanted to showcase the journey from student life to soldier status. As such, we conjured up a vision of a recruit in both civilian attire and military uniform. The aim was to illustrate how one transforms into an ambitious serviceman. Splitting the image down the middle, we overlaid it with strong typography of a new strap-line: ‘BELIEVE BECOME.’

The original Military Standards Training’s logo featured a complex illustrated crest. We suggested moving away from using the crest within the logo. Instead, we proposed using it on select documentation only. This would allow for a stronger, more flexible logo that would work better at a variety of sizes and colours. We also recommended redrawing and tidying up the crest so it had a real mark of quality to it.

We created a comprehensive brand identity guide and toolkit to help roll out the brand across pop-up banners, advertisements, course materials, and our website. This unified approach ensured that every touchpoint was consistent with the overall branding strategy.

It has been a pleasure to be part of the Evolve journey and help them achieve amazing growth. Thanks to our rebranding efforts and new website, their student intake more than doubled in just 6 months! With an additional training facility planned for early next year, it’s clear that they are going from strength to strength.