FutureGrad's brand is aspirational and encouraging while still being appropriate for educational intitutions.

"No grad caps"

It was important to the client that we represent the achievement of graduation without using a typical grad cap icon. I started by sketching variations around the themes of "education", "ascention", and "growing". We moved forward with a concept combining a paper airplane with a bookmark that could also resemble a graduation tassle.

The logo also needed to be used in videos so I animated a longer intro version and shorter outro version.

The teal primary color already existed in the brand. To contrast this, I chose a dark navy and orange. These are used in the logo and UI, and illustrations. The secondary and tint colors are used for illustrations in the app and marketing assets like emails and social.

Illustrations that encourage

The FutureGrad app helps students keep track of financial aid and graduation requirements. In order to keep the messaging more encouraging than reprimanding, I went with fun and colorful illustrations, not typical of education based brands.

I also created email heros with simple looping animations.