The new edition of Creators School had unprecedented ambitions which required a profound rebrand. Before I get into details about the rebrand, let me introduce you briefly to the project.
Creators School takes people with very rudimentar knowledge of programming and turns them into hired Junior Developers in just 9 weeks. It's almost common sense now that coding is the language of the future and that there are endless possibilities for one who 'speaks' it. There is, however, a stigma associated to it, that we want to vanquish: the misconception that it is for 'nerds' or a 'boys thing'. How could we tackle these stereotypes?
So we started working on a concept that translated the power of coding. How it empowers us. We explored and read about it and found some beautiful words from people who have code in their lives. There was one in particular that made us smile:
Knowing how to program is the closest we have to a super-power.
Drew Houston, Founder of Dropbox
It sounded absolutely perfect. We started playing around with the concept of coding as a super-power. Creators School is all about turning ordinary people into super-heroes by teaching them how to speak the language of computers.
This idea helped us show people what coding can be nowadays. We associated our message about busting the myths that surround coding with illustrations of super-heroes and the testimonies of professionals in the field. We also managed to communicate what some of these technologies actually are, and how they can change people’s lives for the better. The success of this rebrand was a big step towards making the third edition of Creators School a hit.
Creators School is a unique element in today's tech ecosystem, with a rich contact network that supports everyone involved. With all this in mind, we knew the website should aim to communicate Creators School's unique traits so the first thing you see is an illustration of a building, highlighted in the middle of a city representing the school's positioning in todays tech ecosystem. We also wanted to show people that the daily life of a programmer can be very cool, within extremely stimulating working environments that help you learn and improve every day. At the same time that we attempted to demystify the misconceptions about the life of a programmer, we showed that Creators School is a great way to learn how to code, with a disruptive approach to teaching that challenged and inspired the students.
In the end it resulted in a colourful, yet clean, website with well structured information.
Having a prejudice associated to what you are "selling", even when it can change someone's life, means you have a giant mountain to climb. However, this type of challenge keeps us sharp. We enjoy being forced to step out of our comfort zone, knowing that smooth seas never made skilled sailors. We like to think of design as the light that bursts through a foggy, dark road, clearing the way for people to arrive safely where they want to go.
We designed a new Creators School that sold out, which left us with a pleasant sense of accomplishment. We gathered a group of highly motivated people, eager to learn and change their lives and we helped them become super-heroes that challenged all stereotypes and are now able to write beautiful code.
We're deeply proud of them. There's no greater feeling in the world.
