Indian Hill School District: Environmental Design
Reflecting the school’s mission of creating a vibrant, engaging and dynamic environment
Brand Development
Brand Positioning
Messaging Matrices
Website Strategy, Content and Design
Website Development
Indian Hill School District recently completed building their Entrepreneur’s Center, which serves as a dynamic environment to cultivate students’ entrepreneurial skills and innovative thinking. Located at Indian Hill High School, this space offers hands-on experience including business plan development, startup simulations and mentorship from Greater Cincinnati business leaders. The Entrepreneur’s Center provides an environment for students to learn essential professional skills, strategic planning and to have the opportunity to earn industry-recognized credentials.
IHSD wanted the design of the Entrepreneur’s Center spaces to reflect its mission: creating a vibrant, engaging and dynamic environment while providing flexibility for student use and community collaborations.
Creative Strategy & Inspiration
Environmental design presents a unique challenge. Taking a brand toolbox from 2D to 3D is an opportunity to consider what it’s like to experience a brand in a fully immersive way. It’s an opportunity to explore depth, interest, texture and layers beyond the page or screen. It requires a unique spatial strategy that must account for many potentials uses of the space as well as different sightlines as one moves throughout the space.
These considerations and more were top of mind as our team got to work on the Entrepreneur’s Center. We started with a tour of the Center as well as other spaces throughout IHHS to immerse ourselves in the essence of the school and its brand.
Our objective was to create dimension and visual interest throughout the space, which included conference rooms, huddle spots, workspaces with desks and a community room that can be divided into smaller meeting rooms. Outside of a logo and color palette, IHHS didn’t have any other visual assets or graphic toolbox. Our team would need to build and expand their toolbox in a way that would be compatible with other spaces throughout the IHHS building while ensuring it would feel like an inspiring and future-focused environment.
Our creative strategy balanced where to create a bold visual impact and where to implement more subtle finishes for a softer visual takeaway. With this in mind, our team explored how to utilize the school’s logo, familiar graphics and messaging to bring them to life in engaging and interesting ways that would reflect the multiple purposes of the Center. It was crucial to reflect the culture of the high school while appealing to local community leaders and business professionals who will use the Center as part of their partnerships with IHHS.
We considered both the broad impression you get from the space as well as what it would be like to view and work in the smaller spaces like the huddle spots and work stations. We also considered wayfinding cues for exterior walls and multiple entrance points into the Center’s spaces.
The Outcome
By playing with scale, texture and unique printing techniques, the resulting environmental design creates a bold, engaging and vibrant reflection of IHHS. Some of the unique features of the space include:
Translating key communication points into engaging acrylic panels.
Implementing unique printing techniques and varnishes like Spot U.V.
Creating texture by layering different materials.
Exploring a variety of application needs on surfaces including drywall, glass and cinderblock.
Balancing mega graphics with micro patterns.
Community Center Space
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