Creating independent school marketing for a famous institution.
Hampton School
Hampton School was founded in 1557, and is an extremely successful boy’s school in south west London. Independent school marketing is highly competitive and diverse, and so Hampton School wished to construct a clear and engaging independent school brand identity with unique and recognisable appeal. Hampton had a desire to overcome pre-conceived opinions and wanted to attract very high academic and sporting achievers, and compete against other very high profile London independent schools such as Westminster and St Paul’s.
Quantock worked closely with the School’s internal team and stakeholders, to develop four core brand ‘pillars’. Hampton’s focus is to enable their pupils to be open-minded, tolerant and full of conviction, aiming for personal success while supporting those around them with kindness. These values needed to be able to be communicated in a clear and concise way that captured the true essence of the Hampton community and culture.
Unearthing the core values of the school.
Quantock worked closely with Hampton School’s internal team and stakeholders, to develop four core brand ‘pillars’. Hampton is a school whose focus is to enable their pupils to be open-minded, tolerant and full of conviction, aiming for personal success while supporting those around them with kindness. These values needed to be able to be communicated in a clear and concise way that captured the true essence of the Hampton community and culture (to learn more about how we build brand pillars, click here).
Shifting internal and external perceptions.
A primary focus was to explore and develop a strong and overarching visual equity for the brand. This comprised of Brand ID, Typefaces, Photography, use of imagery and a development of their values and core strap line.
Quantock’s repositioning and rebranding exercise has Hampton’s school marketing and completely revolutionised the whole perception of the school. Hampton School showcases exactly how to refresh an existing identity whilst maintaining its original integrity.
Brand control and uniformity.
No real control, structure or relationship between the school and logo was apparent, with clear inconsistencies across departments and teams throughout the school. Quantock’s first exercise was to bring structure to the core brand ID and how it is applied, and this involved formalising the brand colours and introducing a standardised system of typography.
Four supplementary colours were introduced, to complement a revised set of core colours (Black, yellow and gold). Concise Brand Guidelines were produced, which acted as a springboard for successive marketing materials and ongoing communications.
Bringing the Hampton Story to life.
The resulting objective was to apply the fundamental brand foundations across all of Hampton School’s brand and marketing collateral.
Part of the overhaul included the commissioning of high quality photography. The brief was to produce natural shots conveying a sense of happy and highly motivated boys!
An immersive brand.
An exciting development of our partnership with Hampton has been the creation of large interior wall art for each subject. These branded designs create a seamless professional aesthetic for the interior of the school, transforming the space and making it much more educational and appealing for students.
Collaboration at its best.
We work frequently with Hampton School’s separate teams and departments to create all manner of online and offline communications. It’s a really collaborative and proactive relationship, with constant innovation and ideation across the entire suite of both internal and external marketing. There truly is no aspect of Hampton School that we have not touched!
Working with a client that is not only open to new ideas but also encourages us to push our creative boundaries has been a breath of fresh air. Hampton School is an institution that values innovation and is always willing to try new things, which makes our job as designers so much more exciting. What’s more, the communication between our team and theirs is seamless, with constant updates and feedback that help us refine our designs and bring their vision to life.
It’s always a great feeling to see our ideas take shape, and with Hampton School, we have had the privilege of working on some incredible projects, such as the big open day graphics. Their collaborative approach has allowed us to truly integrate into their team, and we feel like we are part of something much bigger than just a design project. Overall, working with Hampton School has been a great experience, and we look forward to continuing our partnership with them in the future.
Chloe White, Junior Designer
