Vision behind branding for 2025 Design Educators Conference
Interview with Kristine Do, Esabelle Chen and Audrey Nickerson McIntyre
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, Esabelle Chen and Audrey Nickerson McIntyre collaborated to create a visual identity for the event.
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
What was your inspiration for the identity?

“We zeroed in on the tradition of people giving teachers apples. It sparked creative storytelling opportunities and a few different concepts were constructed using that as an overarching visual motif. We wanted to balance the earnest act of giving an apple with a more cheeky attitude through the "detention"-style type repetition (think: Bart Simpson writing lines on the chalkboard in the opening credits of The Simpsons).”
Kristine Do
“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
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
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
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

“As students, our knowledge of design educators is one-sided and restricts us to what we know. Spending time exploring, researching and restarting ideas to form a coexistence between our experience and an educators' reality was an important lesson, which ultimately led to a stronger final concept.”
Audrey Nickerson McIntyre

“Being very new to the industry, I started off nervous and it was reflected in my first drafts. Through many, many versions and directions, I was able to distil the visual tone to what I had in mind. Once I defined that to myself, I was able to show more compelling work to Kristine and get really helpful feedback. I think, as new designers, we have to learn to balance total confidence and fear of failure.”
Esabelle Chen
Kristine Do
Professor & Brand Design Coordinator at George Brown College, School of Design
Esabelle Chen
Student at George Brown College, School of Design
Audrey Nickerson McIntyre
Student at George Brown College, School of Design
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