The College of West Anglia were looking for a fresh look for their Higher Education and Further Education course guides for students.

HE course guides

The College of West Anglia were looking for a fresh look to their annual Higher Educational Course Guide for students. The guide is aimed at students 19+ and should therefore be attractive to a more mature learner.

Solution

Working around the idea of an integrated college experience, we decided to use a hexagon shape to represent the courses that CWA provide – each colour used on one of the hexagons relates to a course in the guide. Due to how hexagons interlock with each other we thought this would also be a great way to represent a students time within CWA – security, social interaction and unity can all be associated with this shape – think bee hive.

Icons along with a colour index are used in the inner pages to reflect the courses, this provides a strong marker as to which course is which when flicking through. The layout of the inner pages is designed to be clear and easy to read. With the course description in one colour and the course credentials in the corresponding course colour, we’ve made it easy to distinguish which elements the students find important.

FE prospectus

We took the hexagonal theme from the HE prospectus and applied the idea of interlocking shapes to the FE prospectus too. But to capture the concept of futures being less certain at a younger age, we made the shapes irregular. Everyone’s shape is different, hence the title Shaping Your Future, and the College of West Anglia hope to realise students’ potential, helping to mould that shape.

We chose a more interactive, infographic approach for the FE course information as we felt a standard table had too much unnecessary information and was difficult to navigate. Our proposed design made it so students could find their level, and courses within their level, quickly and easily. From there, they could find their next step and how to move forward. Of course, the irregular shapes are reminiscent of stepping stones, which enforces the metaphor yet further.