Forethought Rebrand

Solo Project / Branding / Iconography

Overview
I worked a design internship over the summer of 2023 at Eduphoria, a company focused on building analytic tools for educators. My main project at Eduphoria was a rebrand of one of their tools, "Forethought.”

Goals
The previous design did not encompass the ideas that Eduphoria wanted the tool to convey. The new iconography must adhere to the design principles that were already in place, while at the same time symbolizing the tool itself.

Introduction

Forethought is a curriculum editor that helps teachers create lessons. My design head brought me a project to help revamp the current tool. They wanted to rename and redesign the icon for it. I was provided with four possible names, so I got into Illustrator and started messing around with ideas.

A yellow diamond-shaped object with a hole in the center, set against a dark blue circular background with two blue star shapes.

The current Forethought icon. The stars were the main thing I wanted to keep for continuity.

Beacon

The first name I designed for was "Beacon.” The first idea that came to mind was a spotlight. I wanted to convey through the iconography that this tool would allow teachers to shine a light on where their lesson plans could improve.

Illustration of a head with a headband or crown featuring a blue star in the center and a dark blue background.

The first rough. You can see the perspective lines I used to ensure everything lined up.

A golden yellow pair of pants with a small blue star-shaped patch in the center, set against a dark circular background.

Here I play with different widths of spotlight. Still very rough.

Stylized illustration of a star-shaped object with a blue star at the center, set against a yellow background within a dark circular border.

Changed the shadow because the large cut-out was jarring. Starting to come together

A yellow cone-shaped party hat with a blue star and dark blue decoration, on a dark blue background.

Final icon. Stars were enlarged for better readability and spotlight now seems to come from directly above.

Alternates

I was pleased with how the first one worked out but I came up with some alternative ideas just in case: Light bulbs and light houses.

Stylized lighthouse

Its not very fleshed out, but you can see where my head was at.

A stylized light bulb with a star inside, set against a dark circular background.

This one I liked more cause I could keep the star, but it was still a little basic for me.

Envision

With Beacon done, I moved onto Envision. For this one, I “envisioned” some sort of viewing device. My first idea was a telescope.

Icon of a magnifying glass with a star in the center on a dark blue background.

First draft. Did not look like a telescope enough and also resembled a blueberry.

An icon of a flashlight with a shining star in a dark blue circle background.

Final icon. Successfully kept the main elements of the original while remaining fresh and new.

Alternates

Again, I came up with a couple more ideas. These were OK, but were ultimately either too busy for an icon or too simple.

A circular icon with a dark blue background featuring a yellow curved line and a blue star in the center.

Tried my hand at making a graph line.

Icon of a yellow target with an arrow hitting the center, surrounded by a blue backdrop and a blue star at the top

Had the idea to do a radar. This ended up with too many lines intersecting. Too busy.

Unity

The next one, “Unity,” brought to mind things like puzzle pieces, so that’s what I went with. This one and the next one were good exercises, but I found that the names themselves didn’t lead to that many creative solutions. So these were my least favorites, but I’m still glad I tried them.

A round dark blue background with a yellow jigsaw puzzle piece in the center.

First draft. Very rudimentary.

A logo with four yellow puzzle pieces connected in a square on a dark blue circular background.

Too square and didn’t read very well when placed on screen.

Icon of a yellow puzzle piece on a dark background

Better shape, but didn’t have the nice light blue that was in the original. Also a very common icon.

Icon of two interlocking puzzle pieces, one yellow and one blue, on a dark blue circular background.

Final icon. It was ok, but I think a more creative solution would have been better.

Harmony

Here are the last ones for the name “Harmony”. Like unity, this name is very vague and it was hard to come up with creative ideas for it. Never the less I tried and landed on the idea of a stack of rocks that you might find on a river bank.

Illustration of a yellow stone or bun in a dark blue circular background.

My first draft looked like a big blob so that needed to be fixed.

Illustration of three stacked rocks in yellow and blue on a dark circular background

The final icon.

Final Takeaways

I really enjoyed this challenge. This was my first experience designing something for a company and while they didn’t end up moving forward with the rebrand, This was still a very valuable experience for me.