Salisbury Cathedral School

Salisbury, Wiltshire

• Education

• 51-200 employees

• Branding
• Graphic Design
• Advertising
• Digital Assets

Salisbury Cathedral School is an old educational establishment. And when we say old, we mean very old. It was founded in 1091 by St Osmund, nephew of William the Conqueror and Bishop of Salisbury, to educate the choristers of his Cathedral.

When we were tasked by the school to re-design their brand identity, it was a project we took on with a great deal of excitement and no little amount of respect for the heritage we were entrusted with. This is true to an extent with any independent school brand – the history and values need to be balanced with the vision and ambition for the future. It’s a challenge we’ve come to relish and hone through working with a number of schools on their brand identities.

Rather like a much renewed, ancient building everyone knew the school identity was built on old foundations but nobody could quite remember how it was originally used or what it used to look like. What the school was clear on was its vision for the future. Research had revealed a great deal of affection among current parents, although some prospective parents had concerns around specific perceived weaknesses which needed to be dispelled. We had some great, positive brand attributes to build on – a genuine, heart-felt sense of community, an extraordinary musical tradition, a strong Christian ethos and an energetic, young Head Master at the helm. We began by asking some really simple questions about the brand identity. What did the flower symbol in the logo mean? Could they translate the Latin text for us? Did the shape of the crest have significance? We discovered, for example, that the Latin motto didn’t really quite make sense – an element at heart of the school’s brand was sending out a slightly muddled message. During our brand audit we also found the identity was failing in practical ways too; the logo, for instance, poorly reproduced in most applications.

The new identity reinterpreted the various historic symbols – the Latin motto, the crest, the flower – into a consistent, vibrant set of brand assets. A new brand logo and logotype with a redesigned lily device and a robust, yet elegant new crest ensured it reproduced well in all contexts. A new colour palette was introduced to provide flexible sub-branding possibilities for Prep, Pre-Prep and Boarding and a full set of guidelines ensured everything stayed on track.