CrossTown Learning Center
Brand Development and Logo Design for a Tulsa Childcare Center
“It’s amazing! Thank you so much! We have been so delighted with your service to our organization. You are always professional and work is done … with attention to high quality and to detail.”
Tulsa child care center seeks custom logo design for non-profit organization
Crosstown Learning Center began as a child care center and daycare supported by the Second Presbyterian Church of Tulsa, Oklahoma. Established in 1969, the center catered to professional families working in downtown Tulsa. Until 2000, the center was funded by the church, before filing with the State of Oklahoma as a federal non-profit organization. Crosstown Learning Center also became the first child care center in northern Tulsa to earn a national accreditation from the National Association for the Education of the Young Child (NAEYC) in 2001.
In 2007, the board of directors decided to pursue an updated custom logo design that would represent their mission and values as a child care center. The final design was the recipient of the SIAA Bronze Award in the Logo/Letterhead Design Category.
Our creative team produced an interpretive design that represented the fun and future of the students. The imagery of a student reaching for a star displays the true potential of each student of the organization, achieving their personal dreams. The subtle color scheme speaks for the staff’s dedication to education and innovation.
“The representation of a child reaching for the stars in the logo design supports the organization’s mission of inspiring young minds.”
Challenge
The men and women behind Crosstown Learning Center believe in the early enhancement of a child’s education. Accepting children from ages six weeks to pre-kindergarten, they provide multiple levels of care, attention, and education. As a recipient of accreditation from NAEYC with a three-star status, the center prioritizes the education of both the students and teachers, providing opportunities for teachers to advance and expand their education along with their students.
The development of an identity design allows for potential customers to feel out the organization without any additional knowledge. This is achieved by representing key themes within the logo design clearly and concisely, wordlessly portraying elements of the mission statement values of the organization. Crosstown Learning Center needed a high-quality, custom logo design that would vamp up their existing branding opportunities and attract and inform new clients to their breakthrough program.
Solution
Our creative team understood the importance of subtly highlighting the key themes of the program. Crosstown Learning Center stood for the development and growth of young children in their vital infant and toddler years. We strove to represent the tagline of the organization, ‘Where Creative Learning Matters’, in an attractive, yet effortless design. Our logo design was created with both quality and longevity in mind, and has been used as an effective identity design for more than 14 years.
The text of the design was the name of the organization, ‘Crosstown Learning Center’. We broke the text into two stacked sections. The top portion of text, ‘CrossTown’, was capitalized as seen. We formatted the text in a fun, bolded sans serif font and colored it black to add weight to the design and highlight the name. The lower portion of text, ‘Learning Center’, was formatted in a thinner, more rigid sans serif font that complemented the fluidity of the upper font. This section was aligned much further to the right than the upper portion, beginning beneath the first ‘S’ of ‘CrossTown’ and extending nearly the entire word ‘Center’ beyond the end of the name. The word ‘Learning’ was colored in a bright, vivid orange to represent the warmth, energy, and passion of everyone involved in the lives of the children. The word ‘Center’ was black to continue the color theme and draw the eye through the elements of the design.
The image of the design was incorporated into the top of the text, within the ‘T’ of ‘CrossTown’. The horizontal top of the ‘T’ was artistically curved to resemble the pages of a book, above which a young child is sitting. The black outline of the child reaches and points to the left and upward, towards a young rendition of a star. This child, reaching for the stars, restates the central message of the learning center, nurturing dreams and educations so that every child can reach for the stars. This yellow star, just within reach of the child, is reminiscent of playdoh in the soft, organic nature of its edges. This image illustrates the positive, enjoyable, achievable learning experience available to attendees of Crosstown Learning Center.
When designing the brand identity, we also wanted to create attractive marketing materials such as pencils, business cards, flash drives, envelopes, and stationary. We continued with the existing color story in our design approach, incorporating tones of red, orange, and white into the designs. When a larger expanse of space was available, we incorporated a translucent image of a group of young children sitting together. This image further represented the children they yearned to educate and served as an inspiring reminder to all recipients that they are making a difference in the lives of these future members of society.
