Toronto Metropolitan University
The Creative School is the communication and design faculty at Toronto Metropolitan University (TMU); it has over 6,500 students across 27 academic programs. When I joined the Dean's Office as the lead designer, there was a lack of alignment with the main TMU brand and a fragmented design infrastructure that was limiting the production of consistent design output aligned with what the university was doing at a central level.
Fragmented design infrastructure
1
Weak brand governance
2
I realized that brand consistency wasn't simply a design problem, it was a systems problem. My strategy focused on three interconnected pillars: infrastructure, collaboration and brand governance.
Infrastructure
1
Collaboration
2
Brand governance
3
PHILOSOPHY
Successful brands are not maintained through control, but through systems that make the output consistent, scalable and repeatable over time.
Design Infrastructure
1
Developing the operational foundation for consistent design
Artifacts
Collaboration across teams
2
Enable teams to work together within shared design workflows and software.
Artifacts
Brand governance
3
Creating the conditions for brand consistency, alignment and design scalability.
Artifacts
2x
Design iterations moved 2x faster
40%
Reduced back-and-forth emails by 40%
27
academic programs supported by a shared design ecosystem
ULTIMATELY
A faculty brand more closely aligned with the university's brand across print and digital communications.