Zixo Rebrand and Logo Design

Background:

The Zixo logo we inherited

About 10 years ago, the current Graphic Design teacher established an enterprise class of students who did Graphic Design work and got paid for their services. All the funds went toward purchase of materials and equipment for the classroom.  Since I inherited the Graphic Design Department, I have long wondered if we could bring back the enterprise function and instead of purchasing classroom equipment, give the money back to the students who did the actual work when the school year ended.  Could we create a college scholarship fund that would help students in their next steps toward college and career after they left New Tech High School?

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Because the class had already set up the bank accounts and the name of the company, Zixo Designs, we decided as a Skills USA chapter, to simply revive the bank account and the brand.  We needed to rethink our logo, our overall brand and the services that we would offer the community.  The most logical place to start for us was with the logo, so we decided as a chapter that each student would design a logo for the business and then we'd choose together which one we wanted to represent Zixo. It became a great way to model what students would need to do in the future when they managed to land real paying clients!

Process

Following the industry process for logo creation, the first step was to write up a creative brief together.  For this, we had a discussion about who we were, who we wanted to serve, what our unique offer would be, who are competition might be, and how we would differentiate ourselves. We realized that no-one else in the local business world would be offering what we could offer, a chance to get inexpensive design work done while working with a group of young and vibrant designers.

After we filled out our client questionnaire with all the key facts, we plugged all of the information into ChatGPT together and asked it to formulate our Creative Brief. We talked about when and where AI is useful and how to use it ethically in the design world.  We even spent a week watching videos from the Adobe Education Exchange about the ethical considerations of using AI in the field.

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Ideation and Iteration

The Creative Brief became our touchstone document for working on the first round of sketches.  Each chapter member presented their conceptual sketches to the rest of the members for feedback and considerations for next steps. Students then began the first drafts of their logos in Adobe Illustrator and Fresco.  We then went through another round of feedback and peer review so that students could further refine their logos.  In the end, we voted on the final logo and chose the one we wanted to use moving forward. The student whose work we chose then completed several iterations of the logo for use on the website, stickers and T-shirts, social media and brochures.  We needed a version that would work on both light and dark backgrounds as is true for most clients in the real world.

Organization

In this process, we "hired" team members through the process of resume writing and interviewing in front of the whole group. We hired team leaders, creative directors, project managers and Junior or Senior Designers. Throughout this process, the team leaders were responsible for running regular stand-up scrum meetings, checking with the CEO (me) if there were any obstacles or issues that needed to be discussed, and generally keeping the process moving forward.  The entire enterprise was effectively student-led through a clear delineation of roles, responsibilities and systems. Any systems needed for file sharing or for creating collaborative folders were established by the Operations folks.  The Ops department also took any and all notes during feedback sessions and shared them to the group so they could act upon those notes. Any announcements or decisions that needed to be made were done by the students and most decisions were made as one big team. 

Set up for Future Success

Going through the design process internally first, modeled for students how to move through the various stages of design and implementation.  This became critical for students to understand, because we got our first paying logo design client soon after!  From there, the students took over the entire process, from doing the intake interview with the client, to writing up the creative brief, to conducting internal feedback sessions, prior to meeting with the client for feedback and providing the final logo. Going through the process first as a chapter set them up for success as they continue to land client after client on their own! It's been amazing to watch them grow and take the reigns of the Zixo business. It all started with their own company logo design.