Reclaim Hosting

Back in the summer of 2015, I was sipping a coffee in Barcelona with Jim Groom, co-founder of Reclaim Hosting. I couldn’t help notice how he talked about his edtech startup. It struck me that he talked as if he was the owner of an independent indie record store. And so the “Reclaim Records” aesthetic was born… (here’s Jim’s take on it)

Firstly we looked through all the messages of Reclaim Hosting through the new lens of this fresh metaphor. Greatest hits, Classic Albums, Record sleeves, Stereo, the shop itself. Every time we came back to the metaphor, it gave us a different idea. Each individual message demanded a graphic. Following that, we thought about spinning it up – and making the records play. Each idea a journey that enveloped the previous graphics and incorporated them.

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Aesthetic, Message

ALT – A visual strategy

Aesthetic, Conversations, Message

Open University

Conversations, Message

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The Institute for Mathematics and Computer Science (IMACS)

Institute for Mathematics and Computer Science (IMACS)

The Institute for Mathematics and Computer Science (IMACS) contacted me after seeing a piece of thinkery about the importance of creativity in schools get shared heavily on social media.

I met with their CEO, Terry Kaufman, over Skype for a couple of hours. Coming from a Maths and Software Engineering background, was immediately taken with their approach to helping kids develop logic thinking skills. However, articulating this to others – and particularly parents – is tricky. I couldn’t help but notice that he used the term “a toolbox” with regard to the logic tools they equipped their young people with. So we asked ourselves, what sort of toolbox is this? What would be in there? I even got my kids involved to help me see it from a different angle.

What a thoroughly enjoyable process! And here’s what we finally came up with:

You can read more about IMACS and what they do here: www.imacs.org.

Made with Creative Commons

Aesthetic, Message

ALT – A visual strategy

Aesthetic, Conversations, Message

Open University

Conversations, Message

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UCL Academy

I met the principal of UCL Academy, Geraldine Davies, at an Edu-think event in Westminster, and she invited me to come and spend a day with her students and staff. The brief was to try to capture the essence of the Academy from both a student and staff perspective. In what I think was a brave move, we decided to spend the morning with a range of students, and the afternoon with some of the staff.

We applied visual thinking techniques in order to stand in the shoes of those participating and see from their perspective. As usual, we captured all the thoughts, mostly in the form of sketches and whiteboard photos and presented them back to the principal. A few were selected to be taken to artwork:

It remains the most impressive Academy that we’ve ever visited – especially with regard to their approach to collaboration skills. And yes – how the students saw the school resonated with how the staff saw it…

Made with Creative Commons

Aesthetic, Message

ALT – A visual strategy

Aesthetic, Conversations, Message

Open University

Conversations, Message

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Jisc – Student at the centre

Jisc – putting the student at the centre

This project centred used conversation to explore the creation of a visual language for a number of projects at Jisc. One project in particular focused on putting the student at the centre. Here are some highlights:

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Reclaim Hosting

Reclaim Hosting

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Made with Creative Commons

ALT – A visual strategy

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The Institute for Mathematics and Computer Science (IMACS)

Institute for Mathematics and Computer Science (IMACS)

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Made with Creative Commons

ALT – A visual strategy

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UCL Academy

UCL Academy

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Made with Creative Commons

ALT – A visual strategy

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Jisc – Student at the centre

Jisc – putting the student at the centre

Read next

Made with Creative Commons

ALT – A visual strategy

Open University

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