Case study: KinderCare brand relaunch

The living brand

As Creative Director at KinderCare Education, I led the team that brought a new brand system to life across multiple channels and touchpoints—all in time to celebrate the brand’s 50th birthday.

At the core of the KinderCare brand is a key idea in early childhood education: kids learn best when they can approach the world with an open-ended sense of curiosity. That means there’s always something new to discover or create. This sense of possibility is summed up the the tagline “Confidence for Life.”

Illustration style

The KinderCare illustration style embodies this spirit of open-ended possibility. The basic visual gesture is based on five “building block” shapes derived from the classic KinderCare bell tower logo. With those few shapes, along with a marker pen element and a focused color palette, we can make virtually anything—just as a 4-year old with a bin of blocks can imagine a universe.

Video style

I led the development of videos that communicate the idea of “Confidence for Life,” forging a more authentic and emotionally resonant video style for the brand. 

The Day in the Life video lets parents see what a typical day at KinderCare will be like for their child—and for themselves. The aim was to help parents feel confident that KinderCare was the right choice for their family.

The Kindergrams series gives kids the freedom to create their own stories, using the KinderCare Building Block shapes and their imagination.

The KinderCare Asks series gives kids and their parents a chance to talk about what confidence means to them.

B2C website

A combination of new brand messages, illustration style, and photography keeps the focus on parents.

B2B website

Updated brand messages and look and feel drove a 38% year-over-year B2B traffic increase.

Full-page New York Times ad

To celebrate KinderCare’s 50th birthday, I led the creative for a full-page ad in the Sunday New York Times.

Brand voice and tone

I led the development of KinderCare’s brand voice, taking cues from the company’s established Service Values. The result: an intuitive set of voice guidelines flexible enough to work in many different contexts, from marketing and social media to customer service and curriculum.

User-generated content

The illustration style lends itself to user-generated content campaigns, underscoring the idea that KinderCare nourishes children’s creativity.

Employee engagement

As part of the new-brand rollout, we asked KinderCare’s 14,000+ teachers to submit original artwork using the building block shapes. The winning entry became the illustration on almost 200,000 summer T-shirts for kids and KinderCare staff. This contest helped a huge and dispersed teaching staff across the country quickly understand and buy in to the Living Brand concept.

Consumer engagement

The Kids Create! contest asked kids to submit their artwork—built from KinderCare’s building block shapes—to be used on decor items and merchandise in KinderCare centers.

Brand training

I developed and led training on the new brand for hundreds of KinderCare employees and multiple agencies.