I decided to brand the School of Hard Knocks as a fictional college. I was inspired to do this by the Debt Collective, and through reading what I had about the Art Institutes, Everest College, WyoTech, and similar predatory for-profit schools.

The Concept

The School of Hard Knocks is a fictional university with a large, sprawling campus in Flint, Michigan. It includes schools of Computer Science, Humanities & Social Sciences, Fine Arts, Music, Technology, and Business. It is best described as a shady business venture, started by politicians and shady figures who ventured into academia motivated by money. As a result, this is a college run by people who know how to make money and how to brand and sell themselves, but do not have a real understanding of or interest in educating young people.

The piece would also be a commentary on the state of the student debt crisis, and includes information and statistics from articles online.

The Logo

For the logo, I chose to make something in the style of a crest. This to emulate the institutions of higher learning with long and storied histories who typically have a crest (think Cornell, Harvard, UPenn, Villanova). The idea of this crest, then, is to give a school with no authenticity some perceived authenticity. 

The Admissions Kit

Part of my goal for this project was to create a full admissions packet. The driving force behind this packet is the idea of 'patina'. That is, the packet should be all about exciting the prospective student about attending the school and leave no room for the student to wonder about the legitimacy and quality of the school.

The ID Cards

The ID Cards were designed to be functional pieces of identification, as well as something that would alert the reader to a greater issue at hand (that of the student debt crisis) if the reader was interested in delving further.

The Website

The website was designed to look slick and presentable, with lots of interactivity and a responsive layout.