Conisbrough Ivanhoe Primary Academy
Inspiring mission statements
Conisbrough Ivanhoe Primary Academy are very proud of their new mission statement and want every visitor to their school to know what makes their school so special and what the school is all about. Joe Brian, the headmaster, asked us to produce two wall graphics to highlight their school mission statement. He wanted designs which would make people stop to read it, examine it and think about what it means.
We decided to create a story book theme for the graphic panels to tell the ‘story of Ivanhoe’ and further develop the identity we have helped the school create over the past 18 months. We wanted to feature ‘Ivanhoe’, the knight featured in the Academy’s logo and bring him to life. Each wall graphic shows a different scene with Ivanhoe and his horse in different positions as though they are travelling through the storybook. It is also important that the design complements the other items we have already designed for the school which include a set of 8 collectable postcards and brightly illustrated attendance certificates for each school term and further develops the school’s strong identity.
We created a colourful imaginative design which captures people’s attention as they approach the school. It is designed in such a way that it can be used for fun maths games too when it is viewed close up. The teacher can pose questions like “how many daisies are there, how many butterflies are there, or how many spots are there on the ladybird? The main graphic panel is displayed on the wall outside the main entrance so it can be seen as soon as you start to approach the school and a smaller wall graphic is installed by the junior school entrance.
The school loved these so much that they commissioned a third one, featuring the Ivanhoe Knight in yet another position.
What you do brilliantly is take an idea that might be very rough and ill-formed and you polish it up into something bright and sharp and clear. When I have worked with you I have known only vaguely what I have been looking for and you have produced images that seem to be exactly what I have been looking for all along…
We love our Mission Statement signs. Again, each sign is different; the knight is riding, or sitting still or leading his horse – and each picture is full of detail and thoroughly examined by those who come to read the words.
In all, we have 16 items that have been designed by Kathryn from our tiny logo on our school uniform to our largest Mission Statement Sign and what has happened almost without our realising it is that they have become the symbol of our identity because all the great things we do are expressed in the same elements by the same designer – it has given us an extremely strong identity and sense of selfhood – I would say a corporate identity although one might not think in those terms of a school, but it has helped us to realise who we are and it is a shared, a common realisation, which is a great thing for any organisation.