Educate Private is a leading education consultancy providing educational advisory and tuition services for the leading UK independent schools sector, UK and Europe.
The brief was to create a secondary identity, a mascot & a mural for a school prep / tuition club to help to prepare young Chinese students for UK entrance examinations as well as english lessons and creative activities. Process drafts & the finals of each project are explained in more detail below.
- Branding
- Marketing
- Illustration
- Social Media
Illustration & Design for Educate Private
Creating a Mascot Character
The brief was to create child friendly & anime style mascot for Educate Private’s school prep in Beijing, that would be used to market & merchandise for the Educate Kids club space in Beijing.
Origins of ‘Percy Pu’
Pixiu (pronounced ‘pee-shoo’) is a Chinese mythological creature with the head of a dragon and the body of a Chinese lion. It has a single horn on its head, a pair of wings and a large open mouth to consume gold.
The Pixiu symbolises strength, elegance and mobility. It is believed that the wingless Pixiu assists in seeking wealth while a winged Pixiu assist students in furthering their studies.
For that reason the winged Pixiu was chosen as the mascot to represent the Educate Kids club (based in China) to help and engage and inspire young students to learn.
Research on the mythology of Pixiu, plus a few characters from the client’s reference for initial direction.
Selection of initial drafts and roughs. The first few were too adult and the next a little too young. So these were reworked for the next round of client feedback.
2 options for the finals of ‘Percy-Pu’. Purple was chosen as the main colour, as purple is the primary brand colour for Educate Private.
London Mural & Illustrated Assets
The brief was to create a scalable vector illustration that could be printed out at 1.4 meters to link the Educate Kids Club in Beijing with the main office in London.
Many of the assets created for the mural can be split out and used in various other ways to create marketing materials, brand advertising or merchandise. This would help soften the brand to younger audience and create a friendly and fun environment for young children learning English.
Some of these assets were reused in planning other murals at the entrance of the office.
Creating the detailed pencil illustration was the most important part of the process and getting final approval on the layout. Each of the elements was created and inked separately before being put together so that they could also be used in isolation.
Corridor Mural
Direct Marketing
Created branded flash cards that spell out the company that could be printed and distributed as advertising / marketing materials.
Direct marketing cards to be sent via email or print to clients or their children.
Design & Branding
Identity for the Educate Kids Club corporate materials.
We created a streamlined silhouette and icon of the Percy Pu mascot, and used a shield as reference to shield logos of private schooling.
The ‘educate’ word mark is the existing primary brand identity, which we kept the same for brand consistency and to align both Educate Kids Club & Educate Private.
Business cards, Notes books, Badge pins and other club stationery.
A colour-me-in printable flyer for marketing & social media engagement.
Merchandise & Uniforms
- Polo neck uniform mockups with an embroidered mascot on white.
- Polo neck uniform with a larger version of the club mascot wrapped around the front and back
- Kids T-Shirts
- Tote Bags
- Mugs
Newsletters & Social Media
Thank you for making it to the end!
If you have any questions about my work please don’t hesitate to contact me
JANINE SHROFF 