North Carolina Cyber Academy | Visual Identity

North Carolina Cyber Academy (NCCA) is a virtual charter school offering a well-rounded education for kindergarten through 12th grade students across all 100 counties in the state. They prioritize individualization and focus on the needs of the whole child. NCCA serves as an online partner helping NC students grow academically as well as socially and emotionally, so they’re prepared for life and the careers of tomorrow.

NCCA recently went through a name change and logo redesign and as a next step, the school needed help to bring their verbal and visual brand to life. We started with a holistic messaging framework and developed moodboard options to explore potential visual directions. We created comprehensive brand guidelines, which included web/UX counsel and a custom illustrated owl mascot.

THE TEAM

Amy Burgess (Creative Director)
Erin McNally (Art Director)
Laura Svites (Designer)
Bronwyn McNully (Illustrator)

Moodboards

Option 1: Structural Elements

NC Cyber Academy focuses on strong academic curricula paired with extensive support as the fundamental building blocks for online learning. This option leans into these building blocks by leveraging rudimentary and foundational shapes to show how NCCA literally shapes students’ educational experience. With the help of strong color blocking, shapes combine to create a variety of strong and creative patterns that also give a nod to the ambitious nature of the school—under all grade bands.

Photography used in this option works to convey the challenging, yet supportive nature of the learning environment NCCA creates for students—and works harmoniously with NCCA’s brand color palette and typography, providing a sense of confidence and community through the connectedness of all elements.

Option 2: Confidence in Motion

Pulling inspiration from the state outline in NCCA’s logo, this option showcases outlines combined with overlapping shapes used in different orientations to create a flexible branding system that can be used across materials. These visual elements represent the uniqueness of each student and their individual needs—as well as the ever-present support NCCA offers to each of them.

This direction leans into the boldness of the yellow from the color palette, complimented by the brand blues to create a two-tone style that furthers the idea of partnership—both the appreciation for the individuality of NCCA’s students and the support the school system provides. Selected original, full-color photography features glimpses into the real-life environments and situations of students, teachers and learning coaches to evoke a more relatable, approachable tone.

Option 3: Progress is Personal

This option focuses on NCCA’s compassion for learners and its whole-child approach to supporting students. The organic shapes evoke a sense of friendliness, comfort and approachability, while also paying homage to the uniqueness of NCCA’s student body. These shapes offer up enough versatility to appeal to both younger and older student audiences as well as the adults.

A gradient-like effect is created by leaning into the different tones of the blues and greens from the NCCA color palette, while photo treatments use cut outs and curved-shape overlays to draw attention to the person in the photo, reinforcing NCCA’s prioritization of the individualized student experience.

brand guidelines

The visual identity was inspired by moodboard option 1, demonstrating the competitive educational instruction paired with extensive support as the fundamental building blocks for successful online learning at NCCA.

We represented these building blocks by leveraging foundational shapes to create a flexible pattern system. With the help of strong color blocking, geometric shapes combine to create a variety of creative combinations that also give a nod to the ambitious nature of NCCA through all grade bands.

View the full guidelines here.