HKCT
Having first opened its doors as Workers’ Night School in 1947, HKCT has been offering skilled labour training according to industry demand and shaping positive values among its students.
As part of the institution’s rebranding initiative, we were presented with the opportunity to redesign their logo which had been in use for the past twenty years. As depicted below, their original logo had their name HKCT intertwined with the Chinese character “工 (work)” which captured the institution’s vision to equip their students with practical skills to do good work. An orange arrow cutting through the blue graphic symbolized their mission to facilitate breakthrough within the blue collar industry.
A challenge we faced was while ideating for HKCT’s new logo was that we had to modernize and communicate the institution’s new positioning while retaining the core elements of their original brand. We started by extracting the key components of the old logo (colours, arrow and words) and further simplified it by removing the letters ‘HK’ as we felt it only served as a location indicator. After further adjustments, we designed the new logo around the letters “C” and “T,” and adjusted the latter to assume the shape of an arrow. At first we had planned to rework the “T” into a bird silhouette to signify hope, but after a few iterations, we found that the panels that made up the arrow could be arranged to look like a graduation cap with a hanging tassel. We also changed their original shade of blue to a darker navy and created short and long versions of the logo for easy application.
After further adjustments, we designed the new logo around the letters “C” and “T,” and adjusted the latter to assume the shape of an arrow. At first we had planned to rework the “T” into a bird silhouette to signify hope, but after a few iterations, we found that the panels that made up the arrow could be arranged to look like a graduation cap with a hanging tassel. We also changed their original shade of blue to a darker navy and created short and long versions of the logo for easy application.
1987 ~ 2014
2014 to present
New motto
After successfully completing the rebrand, the new logo was applied to a variety of materials, including pins, envelopes, business cards, letterheads, notebooks, lanyards, podiums and more. It was also implemented on their walls and building signage where the “T” was modified to be 3-dimensional.
We also created a brand guideline so that all the departments and affiliated organizations could easily implement it into their visual identities as well. This allowed for a successful rebrand with minimal friction for the entire organization.
This project held great significance to Beeswork as HKCT was the almamater of our company’s founder, Winston. As a graduate from the institute and direct benefactor of their vision, we are grateful for the opportunity to give back using the skills and values that we had gained during our time there.
