CSBA Marketing Collateral |

CSBA
2024
Video Production, Social Media Content, Whitepapers
The California School Boards Association (CSBA) was hosting a Board Trainee conference to prepare newly elected school board members for their roles across the state. They wanted to promote their training offerings, including their Orientation for New Trusttes and GAMUT program, using a variety of marketing collateral such as videos for their LinkedIn page, social media on their Instagram account, and whitepapers to provide online and at the convention. When I was working with Knowledge Stud.io, CSBA brought on our team to undergo this cohesive project.

With regard to their digital content, I felt that their material could use a fresh spin away from their traditional brand guidelines. Much of CSBA is largely technical in approach and lacks the warmth I felt a school board should exemplify. This was the foundation for how I began designing content around their training opportunities in this conceptual approach.

The following details my note-taking process, brainstorming, and final execution of all project deliverables.

Notes

For the CSBA interviews, I wanted to take full advantage of what the association's brand guidelines had to offer. The organization has a wide color scheme, but only the primaries were largely used in marketing collateral. This was the basis for the intros and outros that I developed for each interview clip. I also felt that while the logo was visually appealing, it didn't have a lot of creative real estate for video productions. This is why for the conceptual refresh, I build a dynamic logo that forms with each letter and glyph, partly inspired by the logo animation for The Futur. The same approach can be said for the lower thirds developed to identify each interviewee. In the past, I had gotten use to basic sliding cards with names and titles, but I wanted to add something more energetic to give the impression of CSBA as a vibrant organization with great offerings for those who seek them out.

The visual style of the videos helped inform how I wanted to approach promoting their GAMUT benefits on social media and print/digital whitepapers. However, these materials were intended for an audience in a different portion of our marketing channel, and so the visual approach took a more firm layout that spelled out training opportunities and benefits to viewers from all backgrounds.
© 2025 Ethan Davis

Before

After

© 2025 Ethan Davis
© 2025 Ethan Davis