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A powerful employer brand + visual identity for an ed-tech company
Emeritus is a leader in ed-tech and their mission is to make high-quality education affordable and accessible to people all across the planet. Rezonant shaped how the world sees their impact — through conscious visual storytelling.
Challenge

How do you help a unicorn spread its wings?

Emeritus has cemented their position in the ed-tech ecosystem — with thoughtfully designed programs, strong partnerships with reputed universities and an expansive learner base. Our challenge was to build an enduring employer brand as they moved forward.

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Some of the key challenges

  • How do we give people a ‘big picture view’ of the sector? 
  • How do we celebrate the journey of Emeritus?
  • How do we put people and their stories in the spotlight? 
  • How do we bring out the scale and magnitude of the organisation? 
  • How do we champion Emeritus as a workplace for transformative careers? 
  • How do celebrate the wide impact of the organisation 
  • How do we give people from the outside a view into the work life of Emeritians?
  • How do we collect and narrate stories spread across 4 countries and many time zones?
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Strategy

Building a visual language that celebrates people and their legacy

Emeritus has partnered with some of the most reputable and influential educational institutions on the planet to design transformative online programs. After a detailed process that involved benchmarking, research, surveys, and interviews — we arrived at a central message for the EVP (Employee Value Proposition). The statement chosen was ‘building a legacy of impact’.
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Click here to read the expansive case study on the Emeritus Employer Brand project 

“In our design decisions, we wanted to create a consistent visual language that celebrates the meaningful contribution of individuals who make up Emeritus.”

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Some key questions that shaped our work

  • How to align the design language to the core philosophy of the EVP? 
  • How do you depict a mission-driven team?
  • How do you visualise the legacy of individuals in a mission-driven organisation? 
  • How do you showcase the global nature of Emeritus through design? 
  • How do you capture the ever-changing, dynamic nature of edtech?
  • How do you showcase the impact of a game changing edtech company?
  • How do you showcase the knock-on effects of high-quality education?
  • How do you create a visual language that can be used across various mediums and media platforms? 
  • How do we create a distinct identity for Emeritus as an employer while adhering to their brand guidelines? 
  • What would be a simple and powerful pattern that can be scaled to all the assets?

Design

Making waves at every opportunity

We came up with a visual language for the employer brand that was powerful, bold and most importantly — in alignment with the theme of ‘building a legacy of impact’.
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The Emeritus Ripple Effect

In our finalised visual motif for the employer brand, we decided to go with a pattern of reverberating and outwardly growing circles or waves. We called it the Emeritus ripple effect.
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Ripple effect

Variants

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Ripple effect options

“We consequently developed and used 3 different variants of the Emeritus Ripple Effect patterns across the assets. This gave us the flexibility to choose between the variants based on the use cases and mediums — videos, carousel posts, banners etc.”

The pattern complemented the theme perfectly. We created an aesthetic that carried a lot of meaning for the brand.

  • Every employee at Emeritus creates a ripple effect that impacts their team, their family and society
  • Every learner at Emeritus creates a ripple effect that impacts their organisation, community etc.
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Scaling the EVP

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IMPACT

Painting a consistent picture of a high-impact career

Whether it is the logo, colours, typography, illustrations, patterns or any other key element — we have managed to create a cohesive visual narrative for the Emeritus Employer Brand centred around impact.
Scale of Our Impact

A few aspects the visual identity received great acclaim

  • Our attention to detail
  • Focus on strategic goals throughout the design process
  • Ability to adapt the visual based on the context
  • Creating a style that feels new and fresh — yet unmistakably Emeritus
  • Telling stories of the individuals of Emeritians through a consistent visual language
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