Friday evening, May 20, 2022 • Check out the college’s new logo and new branding
Lisé Freking, Inver Hills director of strategic marketing and communications, led the Marketing team that worked in concert with Technology Services to bring you the new Inver website. Lisé is here today as a guest writer on Inver Hills News to illustrate all the brainstorming, preparation, synergy, know-how, troubleshooting, and long hours that powered the creation of the new site.
Attention all Inver Hills students!
When you visit the Inver Hills Community College website Friday evening, May 20, 2022, you’ll discover the site has not only been redesigned, but also features the college’s new branding colors and a new logo. The new green color scheme fits with our Inver Hills campus community environment; the new logo has a clean, modern look. Your feedback in surveys and focus groups helped us develop our new brand strategy.
All of your needed resources are still available and even easier to find. Just click on the top left “hamburger menu,” and then on the Current Students link, and you will see resources such as D2L Brightspace, e-Services, Starfish, and more. Scroll down the page and you’ll find information on student email connections, technology resources, and links to the Help Center and Student Life.
The new website platform also showcases our new college tagline: Where all students belong. This message is designed to make you—our wonderful students—feel welcome in the sometimes intimidating space of higher education. The revised tagline aligns with the college’s new mission, vision, and values statements—also with the aim to make you feel valued for who you are as you learn, discover, and build a better future.
Over the summer, we will be installing new mall banners, monument signs, and campus directional signage to get ready to roll out the red carpet (or should that be the green carpet?) to welcome you back to the campus for fall semester.
The icing on the cake
We are planning a launch party! Look for a future announcement for our celebration that will be held during the college’s fall semester Kick Off event on Thursday, August 18, 2022. Attend Kick Off to enjoy refreshments and receive a free Inver Hills T-shirt.
Enjoy your summer and take a test drive on the new website in your free time.
Quick facts for Inver students
- Inver Hills is launching a new website with a new logo and new colors on Friday, May 20, 2022
- All the resources you need are easily located under the “hamburger” menu—the two stacked lines on the top left
- Look for a launch party during fall Kick Off on Thursday, August 18, 2022, on the Inver Hills campus mall; stop by for treats and a free Inver Hills T-shirt
New Inver Hills website details for faculty and staff
The new Inver Hills Community College website and rebranding is scheduled to launch Friday evening, May 20, 2022. We wish to thank everyone for sharing their opinions in focus groups and surveys as well as for their hard work reviewing content page updates. You’ll find information regarding the college’s new branding assets included in the content below.
Assets, you say? We’ve got ‘em!
Do you need a PowerPoint presentation to share with your class? A new Word template? Letterhead? Envelopes and return labels? We’ve got your needs covered with our new Inver Hills Toolkit. New logos, letterhead, templates and more can all be found on the Marketing department’s homepage on the Invernet. Look for the Toolkit link on the left side of this page for all of your asset essentials.
All new nametag and business card requests through JIRA will be automatically created with the new branding.
Out with the old, in with the new.
Remember that Rome wasn’t built in a day. Indeed, time is required to create something great. Likewise, our efforts to update other marketing assets like admissions information, the college catalog, program data sheets, and more, won’t all be done overnight—we are good, but maybe not quite that good.
What’s on the near horizon?
- A new Inver Hills toolkit and a shared toolkit for Inver Hills and DCTC is forthcoming; check the Marketing Invernet homepage soon for updates
- The email signature line generator has been updated with the new branding; this includes a dual email signature line generator for shared employees
As new assets roll out, we will let the Inver Hills campus community know when they are available and when you can 86 any old assets. That said, if you think we missed something that needs refreshing, let us know and we will get it created lickety-split.
We also revised the information architecture, wrote and developed content for key marketing pages, created a UI component library, and designed and built an entire new front-end experience. These redesigns bring an updated and fresh look to the website as well as new functionality and content updates.
Please start using the new Toolkit to replace any logos you have on documents, PDFs, or other department-owned assets with the new Inver Hills logo. Once the website is released, let us know if you spot anything that still needs a facelift. Expect a message about how to get your free Inver Hills T-shirt and help us get our new look out into your communities this summer.
New Inver branding and logo gallery
More about the college’s new branding…
Hot diggity dog! This is exciting!
She may not always look like the epitome of excitement, but Lila—our Marketing team mascot—got the zoomies when she saw our new website. We hope you get the zoomies, too, when you read below for more insights on the whys behind our rebranding and our new website.
Not to toot our own horn too loudly, but we hope you are as wowed and in awe as we are.
Why did we rebrand?
Inver Hills Community College was initially looking to redesign the website to update functionality, create user groups, and develop enhanced layout schemas. However, through initial stakeholder meetings and focus group sessions with students, faculty and staff, we discovered the college had a larger brand problem that needed to be addressed: Inver Hills Community College did not have one, clear brand identity, but was operating under two old branding identities.
During our focus groups, we heard statements like “Honestly, I don’t even know what our school colors are.” and “The yellow/green combo is sickening.”
We used comments such as “I like the use of green for the hills and nature.” to drive our brand strategy. The new branding will also make Inver Hills stand out among other regional colleges and within the Minnesota State system of 30 colleges and seven universities.
The new brand uses a new color palette, a new “IH” monogram, a new wordmark, and updated overall design language including a more modern font type. Read the full redesign and rebranding case study from our wonderful creative design partner, Object.Design.
The Inver Hills Bookstore will have new logo wear in stock soon. Here’s a sneak peek:
Learn more about the college’s new branding by visiting:
Object.Design Inver Hills Design Work
Learn more about the Inver Hills new website launch and branding by contacting:
Lisé Freking
Director of Strategic Marketing & Communications
Inver Hills Community College
Dakota County Technical College
651-423-8233
