The context
The Beacon School was founded in Amersham, Buckinghamshire as a school for boys in 1933 with just five pupils. Almost a century later, the school now has over 500 students and is a leader in independent education. After living with their current brand for quite some time, it had become tired, disjointed, and in need of an evolution.  

The craft
What makes a Beacon Boy? Understanding the answer to this question was the foundation of the brand narrative. Then, riffing off the school’s standout offering, we picked and unpacked three key pillars - Education, Environment, and Experience. With our narrative aimed directly at parents, we created a concise and compelling brand tone of voice, which included the school’s vision and values, a brand proposition statement, a brand positioning line, a simple but salient manifesto, and various campaign and copy lines.
‍
With the new narrative as our guide, we turned our focus to the visual identity. Approaching it as an evolution rather than a complete reset, we balanced and modernised the existing logo to unify the school’s 100-year history with their progressive approach to present-day education.Subtle but assured, we aligned the design with the new Headmaster’s vision to create an enriching community with unlimited ambition and paired each point of the star with one of The Beacon’s values.
‍
Both the star and the flame are also pulled out to spotlight key messaging and hero shots within the reportage-style photography. The logo typeface, with its mix of geometric shapes and humanistic strokes, perfectly captures The Beacon’s wrap-around approach to pastoral care and mission to develop well-rounded, confident young men. Our primary typeface, Miller Banner Compressed, a condensed serif with dramatic curves, elevates the brand messaging with its sophisticated elegance.
‍
And finally, keeping the brand buttoned up, we retained the dark blue and plum of the boys’ blazers and ties as the core brand colours and introduced two pairs of accent tones to compliment and contrast the primary palette.

The end result
Increased brand awareness and website traffic and a growing number of followers, shares, comments, and reach across the school’s platforms. Most importantly, the new brand was welcomed across the board by pupils, parents, and staff. All of which has allowed The Beacon School to position itself more clearly in a competitive private‑school market.

You can hear the manifesto come to life in The Beacon's brand film.