Vision behind branding for 2025 Design Educators Conference

Each year, the Design Educators Conference celebrates the role of instructors, mentors and creative leaders in shaping the next generation of designers. 

For 2025, the RGD is excited to partner with George Brown College School of Design for our 2025 event which takes place October 3 in Toronto, following DesignThinkers Toronto. As part of the partnership. 

Students and faculty have developed the branding for this year’s conference: Under the guidance of Kristine Do, Professor & Brand Design Coordinator, Yi Jou Esabelle Chen Student RGD and Audrey Nickerson McIntyre Student RGD collaborated to create a visual identity for the event.

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What interested you most about taking on this opportunity?

“Being a design educator has helped me build a real sense of community — not just with fellow faculty, but with students too. Teaching allows me to give back by helping shape the next generation of designers and branding this year’s Design Educators Conference was another exciting chance to contribute to a community I care about.” — Kristine

“I was excited to apply what I’ve learned in the past three years to a real-life client and branding system. I also felt that the Design Educators Conference offered a chance to show something different from the usual education logo tropes.” — Esabelle

“At GBC’s School of Design, there is a strong multidisciplinary community — the experience of unbridled support and appreciation we as students have for each other is unmatched. When the opportunity came to develop professional skills while giving back to the educators who have guided us for the past three years, the answer was a no-brainer. It’s our own appreciation for educators that connects us to the concept of ‘The Core.’” — Audrey

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What was your inspiration for the identity?

“We collectively found inspiration in our appreciation, wanting to create a celebration of the design educator career as influential mentor figures. We researched several concepts that connected to our vision for DEC 2025 — but it was ultimately the apple that most resonated with us. The more we bit into the ubiquitous apple-educator relationship, the more meaning was planted into the messaging of each deliverable we created.” — Audrey

"We layered this with the nostalgic imagery of chalkboard detention, specifically the repetitive act of writing, to subtly hint at the iterative nature of learning. Furthermore, we aimed to visually represent how educators empower students to "problem solve" and express their unique perspectives. This led to the central motif of the apple being presented in various cuts, slices and chops — each symbolizing a different viewpoint or approach to tackling a design challenge. Our research focused on sourcing apple imagery that effectively highlighted this concept, alongside selecting a typeface that visually suggested the process of gaining clarity as educators guide students through their learning journeys. Finally, we developed a nuanced colour palette directly inspired by the diverse hues found in different apple varieties.” — Esabelle

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What was your design process for tackling the project?

"Although I gave Audrey and Esabelle some loose key themes as thought starters, I like to give students total freedom to come up with their own ideas based off of the creative brief. It's always a fun surprise to see how they interpret it! It was a really collaborative process for the team and we focused on the story that we wanted to tell conceptually and developing the visual language of the system to flesh out the feeling we wanted to create for the conference. Design education should be uplifting as we're here to help usher in the next generation of talent, so it felt right to make it optimistic and cheerful." — Kristine

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Why did you think this concept would appeal to design educators?

"The apple is a metaphor for the creative process: you can slice and dice a brief in countless ways, but ultimately, you have to get to the core of the idea. It's visually playful, earnest and ties into the spirit of curiosity, clarity and craft. That is all at the heart of design education." — Kristine

"This core concept updates familiar retro educational elements, most notably the teacher's apple, for a contemporary context. The resulting aesthetic, both cheerful and systematic, mirrors the multifaceted experiences of educators. By intentionally drawing upon familiar educational tropes, not to satirize them but to elevate them as symbolic representations of the unique journey of design educators, the branding is meaningful and heartfelt." — Esabelle

"As a historical symbol of educators, the apple has the power to remind us of our past mentors. By applying our concept — adding ‘design’ to ‘educators’ — we engage the core of the viewer's passion, reminiscing on their own experiences to bring out excitement for their experiences as design educators." — Audrey

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Lessons along the way

"It was interesting to understand the students' perspectives on design education and educators. It made me feel grateful to have students who really respect and appreciate the work and dedication that their faculty pour into them!"— Kristine

Typeface Sponsor for our Design Educators Conference: 205TF

Credits: Design by Scarlett Side Student RGD