Unionville High School

Becoming the Longhorns: Rallying Community Around a New Identity

Brand Strategy & Identity

Mascot Design, Logo Design

Overview

In 2020, Unionville High School in Kennett Square, Pennsylvania, decided it was time to make a culturally aware change of their own. And they wanted to do it in a meaningful way. The school district’s communications office launched an immersive process to mindfully move the school forward. They gathered a leadership team and built a working committee with 65 people representing key stakeholders in their community.

This team led Unionville’s community through phases of discussion, research, and ideation to rally support behind the selection of a new mascot as well as the change itself. As Unionville was moving through this process, they reached out to us for guidance on bringing their vision to life.

Involving your community is critical when working to create a shared vision, and we were thrilled to work with a client who shared our perspective on the ideal brand-building process. But managing input and diverging opinions to negotiate a route to a final YES takes more than just graphic design skills.

Defining Subcommittees

We worked with Unionville’s full committee to gather creative direction. Then we recommended selecting a small group to move forward with review while the rest of the committee was tasked with gathering examples of how the mascot logo would be used. These clearly defined subcommittee roles helped productively move the project forward and unearthed important insights.

Building Consensus

With any large group of diverse audiences there’s bound to be strong opinions. We started with a creative brief intake to ensure we understood the range of input and options the community wanted to consider. This process allows us to navigate feedback from both students and staff as we iterate.

“Iris Creative provided us with a new brand that has ignited school spirit and generated enthusiasm across our district! I am extremely grateful to the designers for listening to our needs and having the vision to bring our brand to life. Trust was extremely important throughout this process — there was a lot of pressure to get it right. Iris got that, and in the end, gave us exactly what needed! Go Longhorns! ”

— Christa Fazio, Director of Communications & Community Relations, Unionville-Chadds Ford School District

Unveiling the New Mascot

Unionville rolled out their new mascot and visual identity in January 2021 and spent the rest of the school year and summer transitioning the school over to the new design. We were thrilled to help the school visually represent their values in a way that made their community feel integral to the process.