Barkisland CE VA Primary School commissioned us to design a new character for their school. They wanted this to be a sheep as the school is situated in a rural area with many sheep grazing in the countryside all around them. As the school sees themselves as “one of God’s flock”, a sheep character is perfect to represent their Church of England school values.

The headteacher wanted the children to be involved in the development of this new school character. She asked them to choose their favourite sheep character from the 3 original concepts we created for them.

They wanted us to develop their chosen character to create 10 different sheep, which spell out the name of the school – B A R K I S L A N D. Each sheep also represents a school value. The first letter of each value spells out the name of the school.

We created a design for some eye-catching wall graphics for the main school corridor featuring the new sheep characters. The bright, colourful graphics display the school’s new core values in an engaging way to all visitors and members of the school.

We also designed some window graphics for the main windows in the hall which visitors and pupils walk past on their way into the school reception. They also featured the sheep characters, which spelt out the name of the school and highlight the school’s core values. The school name and values needed to be able to be read from either side of the window so we produced the sheep characters using black out vinyl so that the lettering doesn’t show through from the other side. The countryside background was printed on translucent vinyl which means the colours will shine through the window onto the floor / nearby surfaces when the sun is the right angle – meaning that plenty of light will still come through the windows and give a stained glass effect.

The Barkisland School Association wanted a keepsake item to give to all the pupils, commemorating the introduction of the school’s new sheep character and the Barkisland values. We designed and produced a bespoke enamel pin badge.