MacEwan University Case Study

What We Did

Branding & Web

The Client

Flight is a curriculum framework intended to guide the significant work of early learning and child care educators with young children (ages 0 – before 6 years) and their families in centre-based child care and family day home settings.

The Project

Flight’s journey began in April 2012, following a visit to MacEwan University by Dr. Pam Whitty, Professor of Education at the University of New Brunswick. Dr. Whitty was invited to MacEwan to deliver a public lecture Children as Citizens in Their Own Right: Learning With/From Our Youngest Citizens. As one of the project directors for the development of the internationally recognized New Brunswick Curriculum Framework for Early Learning and Child Care, Dr. Whitty was also invited to speak to government and community leaders about early learning curriculum. Inspired by these presentations, the Government of Alberta invited faculty from MacEwan and Mount Royal to collaborate on developing and piloting a made-in Alberta curriculum framework for early childhood educators working in centre-based child care and family day homes in the province.

In 2014, Play, Participation, and Possibilities: An Early Learning and Child Care Curriculum Framework for Alberta was released. Since that time, the exciting multi-year action research project engaging front line early childhood educators in centre-based child care and family day homes with faculty in post-secondary early learning and child care programs in Alberta continued as early childhood educators set the framework in motion with children and families in communities across the province.

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Goal

Create a brand that was simpler, memorable, and provided a rallying point for the work that had gone into establishing the framework while signifying it’s value to the ECD community.

Branding

The name “Flight” suggests a young bird taking flight or a flock of birds flying together. Words associated with flight—flying, soaring, gliding, lifting, wheeling, circling, darting, flitting, fluttering, and whirling—symbolize the innovative, playful, creative, and often unpredictable lines of flight in our work with young children.

The bird in the Flight logo, a Great Horned Owl, was selected by children as Alberta’s provincial bird. First Nations and European communities hold the owl as a symbol of wisdom and strength. As mighty learners and citizens of early childhood communities, children also reflect the notion of greatness, wisdom, and strength.

This identity represents the brilliant, imaginative, fluid, and organic work that is representative of children’s everyday curriculum. It encourages reflectivity and freedom of thought, and it inspires growth, change, and innovation bringing us all together toward a shared goal: nurturing Alberta’s children as mighty learners and citizens to take flight.

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Video

Habit developed a series of videos to share the story of Flight and provide a quick introduction for educators and the public. These videos required us to interview childcare educators from all over the city as well as travel to several early learning facilities where Flight was being used. Through a combination of interview footage, B roll of the educators and children interacting together, and motion graphics, we crafted two videos that highlighted the benefits of Flight, it’s core values, and brought the people who were actually utilizing the program into the spotlight.

Check them out here!

MacEwan University