Case Study
Jenie's Dance School
BRAND IDENTITY
AND
WEBSITE DESIGN
2022
2022
Jenie's Dance School, founded in 2004, is one of the largest ballet schools in Montreal, located in Notre-Dame-de-Grâce. The school has taught thousands of students while honouring the tradition of classical ballet. Their mission is to celebrate the gift of everyday, while teaching the children about life through the magic of ballet.
The school director was in need of a more functional, modern, and impactful logo for her school, as the old one wasn't created in mind with graphic design principles.
However, a brand is not the logo, but part of the visual identity. Therefore, I convinced the client that is crucial to have a whole visual identity focused on the target audience, so the school can reach and impact potential clients easier.
Meanwhile, one more design problem rises. The school website is in need of an urgent re-design as no UX/UI and design principles were applied on it. But that will come after the visual identity is done!
Create a modern, functional, and impactful visual identity and website to stand out from the competition, to reach and appeal better to its target audience.
Powerful and elegant brand identity including a timeless and modern signature logo along with an impactful and functional responsive website.
TIMELINE: 3 MONTHS
Before I started designing the new logo for Jenie's Dance School, I spent some time researching the industry by analysing the branding of Les Grands Balletds de Montréal. As well, I created a moodboard, gathered existing logo examples of ballet institutions, and finally started brainstorming logo designs by sketching.
The real challenge in the logo design process was how to create a logo for a ballet school, without incorporating a small ballerina in the design? As I looked logo examples from famous ballet institutions, I found out that I need to take a typographic approach in the design. Therefore, to apply delicate curves, to have an impecable kerning, and to play with the letters.
As a result, I designed a black and white signature logo that evokes elegance, delicacy, and classic feelings. It expresses itself by its fine curves that move the viewer. And unifies itself with confidence and excellence. Baskerville and Futura PT are used to bring contrast and harmony at the same time. They express modern and traditional feelings.
As I had a very elegant and niche logo for an audience that is mostly children, my decision for the brand colour palette was to include a gentle pink to appeal to the small ballerinas, along with black and white. Specifically, black and white represent elegance, freedom, and tradition, while the pink conveys sensitivity, tenderness, and passion.
#231f20
R 35 G 31 B 32
C 0% M 0% Y 0% K 100%
#ffffff
R 255 G 255 B 255
C 0% M 0% Y 0% K 0%
#f5bed1
R 245 G 190 B 209
C 1% M 31% Y 3% K 0%
Baskerville was designed by John Baskerville in 1754. It's a transitional serif font that evokes feelings of tradition, legacy, grace, and warmth.
Futura was designed by Paul Renner in 1927. It's a modern geometric sans-serif font that evokes feelings of elegance and confidence.
To add versatility and interest, I created patterns with the graphic element that play a supporting role. They bring depth to to the brand identity. They are clear, simple, but not over-decorated.
To create uniqueness, recognition, differentiation, and more elegance, I took the first letter from the logo and made it a graphic element. In this way, the element can be used to lead the viewer's eyes to the main message in every communication.
The most entertaining and fun part of this project was to photograph the children. They were posing freely to the camera while having fun, and I enjoyed every moment with them. My purpose was to incorporate a photography style focused on the children's portraits edied with warm tones. The simple goal was brand recognition and bringing emotion!
I developed a responsive single-page site that is functional and impactful for the target audience. It communicates the brand personality successfully. I specifically wanted the site to contain the most important visul and text information so the audience can right away be informed of what is Jenie's Dance School. I am relieved to share that it was easy to develop the design as I already developed the brand guides which helped me enormously.
