Basic Needs Hub

Goal

Give the hub a warm, welcoming identity that makes students want to walk in, not feel like they have to. The system needs to work across every surface, from a printed flyer to a wall mural, so the space reads as community, not charity.

Audience

Two audiences at once. The hub itself serves the college students facing basic-needs insecurity, at a Hispanic-Serving Institution where roughly 44% of students are food insecure. The design work is also student experiential learning, real client work done by students for a real campus initiative.

Process

A two-person team runs it: a faculty lead plus a paid student design intern working through an AmeriCorps education award. The build moves in phases, from research and brand foundation through the illustration library and mural concepts, so students only start painting once the visual language is set.

Technology

• Adobe Creative Cloud across the system: Illustrator for the logo and illustration library, Photoshop, and InDesign for print, flyers, and signage.
• AI in the production workflow for research and creative briefs.
• A brand identity manual with a template library inside it (logo, iconography, color palette, type palette), loaded into Canva and other template tools the department already uses. Staff who are not designers can keep making social media posts, flyers and signage on brand, so the brand does not depend on one student staying in the job.

Outcomes

Work is under way. The hub has its name, and the student designer is producing the materials for the hub’s open house, then building out the brand deliverable by deliverable, ending with the brand identity manual. The measures are named up front: whether students walk in by choice, and whether the identity holds on every surface. For the student intern it is real work for a live campus client, and it will be a full brand system in her professional portfolio.