In the summer of 2018, I auspiciously got the opportunity to travel abroad in Florence, Italy for a month through Marshall University. Being my first time out of the United States and the longest excursion I would be going on, the trip changed my perspective on life in ways I could have never imagined.
This trip led me to create a brand identity for a travel abroad agency that focused primarily on traveling college aged students to Italy to not only dive into a new, exciting culture, but learn about themselves along the way. Culture Travel Agency's main goal is to make traveling abroad easy and stress free, so all of the trips are not affiliated with any college for class credit. The company focuses on the experience one is going to have in a new and exciting country, and not leaving them stressed. By doing this, one is still going to experience and learn the same information one can get from a study abroad program with classes, yet our travelers won’t be in the classroom.
When it comes to branding for this project, I knew from the get-go that bright colors needed to involved, as my target audience for this is college students, especially young women (ages 18-24). Not only did I want to use bright, fun colors to grab ones attention, but fonts needed to be modern and versatile, leading me to use TT Norms for a majority of the project.
To bring the full brand identity for Culture Travel Agency together, I created 4 key elements in all. First being the 5 vinyl banners using key elements of the brand identity in mind. For 4 out 5 of the banners, I used images that were taken on my study abroad trip and edited them in Photoshop to duo-tone the color and cut out images. For the main vinyl banner, I created illustrations that represent Italy, and includes key facts about Culture Travel Agency. Secondly, I created a business card that matches the Culture Travel Abroad agency brand and shares information for contacting the company. Third, I worked through Squarespace to create a live website for Culture Travel Agency, that was on display for the exhibition. One could click through available trips, photos, and contact information. Lastly, I put together a minute and a half long advertisement that shows people studying abroad, learning and living through an exciting trip of a lifetime. As well, I created collateral for the exhibition including a flier and postcard.
