Redesigning a mascot that honors the past and celebrates a united future.

Redesigning a mascot that honors the past and celebrates a united future.

Industry

Athletics & Sports

Discipline

Brand Identity

Client Name

Bricolage Academy of New Orleans

Bricolage Athletic Mascot Design

We redesigned an athletic mascot borrowed from John McDonogh High School. This updated mascot and new color palette helped visualize the design of Bricolage Academy’s most authentic brand message and positioning while housed in a newly renovated facility. Side-by-side with John McDonogh alumni and current pre-K through 8th-grade students, we revised Bricolage’s brand to include a united guide that all members could share.

Good Deeds

Community building and workshops
Reuse and refresh brand elements
Promotes the inclusivity of all voices, races, and ethnicities

Credits

Bricolage Trojan mascot design across various color backgrounds

How We Think > Creative Process

Research methods and design solutions can develop over weeks, months and even years. The goal here is to show a snippet of research, concept plus style, and a significant result.

Want to know more about this project? Contact us

auditing, investigation and strategy

Discover Problems

Define Hypotheses

Identify Opportunities

Photograph of a young boy playing baseball in a gym.

Concept, visualization, and design

Develop COncepts

Design Prototypes

Implement & observe

HOW we SOLVED THE CHALLENGE CONCEPTUALly

Before the mascot design phase began, we led community outreach and workshops engaging with staff, students, and John McDonogh alumni. We heard ideas and goals for what would become a merged John Mac and Bricolage mascot. We spent time auditing the mascot applications throughout the decades. We listened to varied points of view, drew connections across occasionally conflicting community values, and emerged with a new Bricolage brand that united disparate communities under a single Trojan identity.

Ideation & experimentation – visualizations of the trojan as an symbol

Bricolage students performing their robotic poses for class fun.

Prototype Sketches

How we solved the challenge visually

The redesigned mascot is a geometric-styled mark. It utilizes shapes within shapes to subtly reference Bricolage’s core value of tinkering — as a mode of play and learning. By depicting a 3-dimensional mosaic, the mascot’s contours and facets appear to be interconnected.
Over 500 people (Bricolage parents, students, staff members, and John McDonogh alumni) took a survey voting on five logo options. The most popular reason for the Bricolage community’s preference for #5 is that it is not immediately recognizable as male or masculine and the mosaic look/feel.

Want to know more about this project or its impact? Contact us >

Mascot concepts and iterations

Adopted primary Color Palette

What Clients Say

Mary Louise goes beyond your mission statement to bring your space and materials life. With Bricolage, she stayed close to all of the school happenings – growth, evolution, successes, challenges, students, staff. It was her goal to truly know the school and to share in the experience so her work reflected the mission, values, and people of Bricolage. Her eye for style, color, photography and her personal relationship made Bricolage at home whether at Touro Synagogue, Holy Rosary, or the permanent facility, John McDonogh High School.

Holly Robbins Hermes

Chief Development Director

Bricolage Academy of New Orleans

Need expert help?

Is your school’s logo inspiring both students and community members to engage with your institution? Does it give a clear representation of your mission and values? Do staff members have access to and know how to use your logo, or are you constantly making tweaks and pulling different designs from the internet? If your current logo is not helping you achieve your most strategic goals, schedule a call, and we’ll work with you to bring your branding into alignment.

Our Role + Scope