The Bay CE School
The Cornerstone Federation took Sandown High School under its care and management in 2018, pairing it with the already successful Bay CE Primary to become a large combined primary and secondary.
This brought it under the umbrella of a successful federation with a proven track record at the Bay CE Primary as well as Niton Primary. This new school would now be known as ‘The Bay CE School’.
Solent were tasked with creating a new brand and badge for the school. This new identity would mark a fresh start for the school with a new headteacher, team, ethos and look.
Inspiration for the badge was drawn from local heraldry in the Sandown area. This came in the form of a version of an old Sandown High School badge from the mid 60s: a shield housing a castle with a Tudor rose above it.
The castle is a long-standing symbol of Sandown in heraldry, invokes security and safety, whereas the rose is the national flower of England – a symbol of unity and working together.
When it came to deciding the symbols to be included in the badge we decided to include these elements along with the waves from the Isle of Wight flag. The waves symbolise the Bay, denoting the schools proximity to the sea, and are also representative of a lifeforce.
We tried out many different ways of presenting these symbolic elements within a shield shape and trialing different typographic applications, some more contemporary and some more classic. It was decided there was a lot of strength in the elements purely included in the final classic application. Each element was clearly thought out and supposed to be there. In the logo application the typography stands with it but the strength of the badge is that it appears without the name on the blazer, becoming a recognisable emblem on its own: our desired aim.
The badge is embroidered onto the school blazers as well as being applied to a range of other brand materials including signage around the school. The colours from the badge make up the supporting colour palette along with the graphic elements are broken out and used throughout the brand.
Thea’s role on this project was the senior design lead working with the creative team at Solent to push the project creative from the concept stages to final execution of the brand.