Ark
TASO – Brand and website to support the launch of a new organisation
2019 – ongoing
TASO (Transforming Access and Student Outcomes in Higher Education) is a hub for higher education professionals to help widen participation and to improve equality within the sector.
We were approached by TASO in 2019 to develop their new brand identity and website in advance of a public launch. Five years later they asked us to refresh the brand and build a new website which uses a block-based approach to creating layouts.
Development of the brand identity
TASO were looking for help building an identity that would communicate their role to a range of new audiences and distinguish them from other organisations working in the higher education sector.
Using TASO’s existing vision, mission and values as a springboard, we took them through a short workshop process enabling them to explore other key brand concepts such as personality and tone of voice. Phases of design exploration and subsequent refinement followed, involving both key internal stakeholders and representatives from their wider community.
Expanding and refining
The chosen direction uses a bespoke wordmark design suggestion themes of both rigour and evolution. Gradients and strong angles emphasise the dynamism of this young, energetic organisation. We delivered logos, icon assets, a stripped-down guideline document and a few templates.
We returned to the brand a few years later to make accessibility improvements, introduce a new font pairing and provide more detailed guidance for use across a range of channels including presentations, social media and email.
Evolution of the website
The initial website that we developed for TASO clearly presented their offer and provided a hub for information about approaches to improve outcomes in higher education. In addition to standard pages with a range of templates, users requirements were served by a publications library, event listings, news and blogs.
While the website served them well, as a new organisation, TASO have evolved significantly since the initial launch and they started to require more flexibility to deal with their growth and the range of outputs that they were producing. In 2024, we took the decision to rebuild the website.
Recent updates to WordPress in the form of the new block-based editor easily allows back-end users to insert, rearrange, and style content sections. We redesigned the website around this principle. One particular block that enables in-page menus allowed TASO to move away from PDF documents to long-form HTML pages for maximum accessibility and search-ability.
Tools to help users explore evidence
At the heart of both the original and updated websites was an online repository of evidence about effective methods of helping universities improve access and outcomes for students from underrepresented backgrounds.
Users can browse the evidence around a range of interventions and can sort and filter by a range of dimensions including phase of education, cost, impact and strength of evidence.
Bureau have consistently impressed and their ability to adapt to our evolving requirements has been a real asset. They introduced a new block-based structure to our website, which has made it much more flexible, accessible and searchable. The new design aligns perfectly with our evolving identity, and it’s already making a positive impact.