School Datebooks sells a variety of products and services these days, but during my time there I helped with the design and production of four-color educational datebooks and scholastic products for primary and high school levels in North America. Among many projects including a major acquisition and product merger I also worked as part of a team of designers to product multi-level educational resources and products. During the acquisition I had the opportunity to work on the concept designs for both the redesign and product merge strategy. We developed some ideas collaboratively and pitched the designs to determine creative direction. I then facilitated the launch by creating all the subsequent graphics, page layouts and overall site architecture along with page design and layout of existing website. The redesign campaign was a rebrand effort after merging companies and launching the new product line.
My process included extensive research, product discovery, analysis, and knowledge about all the umbrella companies and their products & services during the acquisition merger. I served as a Canadian product line subject matter expert servicing the subsidiary companies and assisting in strategy during the transition. We studied competitive scholastic landscapes in both America and Canada to identify customer and market needs when adding product features or scrapping products that overlapped one another. We also worked with marketing to explore enhancements for company growth. The team collaboration was diverse across departments in order to produce deliverables online and off for the newly marketed brand redesign and campaign launch featuring a new suite of products. There were many moving parts in addition to the new website and all the components that went along with that piece.
Although our timeline was rather brutal on top of our normal stressful production cycles we were able to pull off a successful launch and product merger all in tandem with our normal busy season. The integration of the two companies and their suite of product lines and customer bases was rather seamless and we were able to cohesively tie together the new product family into a professional product portfolio. Simultaneously we launched the marketing campaign to advertise and promote the new merger through all our normal print collateral.
At that point in my career this was my second acquisition and more exciting in that I was more involved with the moving pieces this time around. The Canadian product line was successful in part due to my subject matter expertise and the unique challenges that came along with their product knowledge with the conversions and knowing the market space. The company partnership is still in play today after a successful transition and product campaign we strategized.
One foot deep in creative and one foot deep in the alpine. Designing solutions to solve big challenges & suffering in beautiful places.
