Skills for a Changing World
Roles: Strategy | Project Management | Facilitation | Copywriter
Deliverables: Research | Presentations | Consensus Building | Strategic Positioning | Communication Objectives | Project Narrative
A visual and verbal identity to help The Brookings Institution and Lego Foundation change the conversation about "soft skills".
The Skills for a Changing World campaign needed to be unique, but also able to live within the ecosystems of two strong [and very different] established brands – The Brookings Institution and the Lego Foundation. I was the strategy lead on the project for both the visual and verbal identity.
The visual design communicates the nature of the skills themselves using several design elements: color, shapes, interaction, structure, and growth. The lively colors denote a sense of renewed energy behind this effort as well as help connect the campaign with the Lego parent brand. The many different shapes represent the diversity of skills being promoted by the campaign, while the interaction of shapes represents the interconnected nature of the skills and cumulative nature of learning. All of this activity appears on a strong structured grid system that reminds us that these hard to define "soft" skills like communication, problem solving, and collaboration can be rigorously taught and assessed.
Starting with research...
It became clear from the initial semiotic analysis of the sector that the communication around education and learning was not helpful to the mindset that we needed to establish with the campaign. I led the development of a campaign to tell a cogent and compelling story about the importance of these skills that are often overlooked by education systems and the public in general.
Studies from the field of psychology show that people possess mental models that dictate the way we think about education, contradicting the main ideas we were trying to promote with the campaign. I drew from this research to structure the creative strategy that could reframe the conversation about “soft skills”. Understanding how these counterproductive models are triggered highlighted how we could design communication to be more effective. I paired this research with stakeholder interviews and subject matter expertise to establish an effective strategic position and communication principles for the campaign.
In creating the narrative strategy I took language very seriously, careful not to trigger those negative mental models. In addition to developing the strategic underpinnings of the Skills for a Changing World campaign, I produced a communication strategy that ensured the participation of policymakers and practitioners within this new story about skills and learning.
This communication strategy covered:
Communication Objectives
with tactics and touchpoints
Target Audiences
along with methods and tools to reach them
Key Messages
for overarching campaign and specific verticals
As project manager I led the collaboration across disciplines of subject matter experts, client teams, and designers to bring the brand strategy to life. We created brand collateral to build internal momentum for the campaign launch and marketing materials for public roll out at the United Nations General Assembly.
