Expanding the Brand
into a Scalable System
Platform:
College Trades
Users:
Prospective students navigating apprenticeships in Ontario
Scale:
Application experience serving Ontario’s 24 public colleges
Role:
Sole Product Designer
My Contributions
- User Journey Mapping
- Information Architecture
- Content Strategy
- Experience Design
- Design Systems
- Iconography & Illustration Systems
- Visual Language Development
- Accessibility Advocacy
- Wireframing & Prototyping
- Cross-Functional Collaboration
Team:
Product Manager • Developers • Content Specialists
Served as the sole designer on the project, collaborating with product, content, and development teams.
Project Overview
Extend the brand beyond marketing and into the product experience, creating a visual language that improved orientation, comprehension, and consistency across the site.
Building a Visual Language System
Challenge
- Apprentices needed clear guidance through a complex educational journey.
- The platform required a consistent visual language across growing content and features.
- Brand elements needed to support usability, not just visual identity.
Solution
- Transformed existing brand elements into a scalable visual language.
- Applied consistent patterns across navigation, iconography, diagrams, and learning content.
- Established reusable components that reinforced both usability and brand identity.
Outcome
- Reduced complexity through consistent visual guidance.
- Strengthened brand recognition across the product experience.
- Created a scalable system that supported future platform growth.
Building a Visual Vocabulary
Challenge
- Visual assets needed to support a growing digital product, not just the brand.
- Users required consistent visual cues across navigation and educational content.
- New experiences needed reusable patterns that could scale over time.
Solution
- Transformed the brand’s geometric forms into a scalable iconography system.
- Applied a shared visual vocabulary across navigation, content, and instructional experiences.
- Established reusable design patterns for future platform growth.
Outcome
- Created immediate visual recognition throughout the platform.
- Improved usability through consistent iconography and wayfinding.
- Delivered a flexible system that strengthened both brand cohesion and scalability.
Created a scalable iconography system that improved recognition, orientation, and content discoverability.
Key Takeaways
Designing College Trades reinforced my belief that visual language is most valuable when it becomes part of the product itself. By extending brand elements into navigation, iconography, and educational experiences, design became a tool for reducing complexity rather than simply decorating interfaces.