Designing the coolest school

Eastside is a high school in East Palo Alto, California with a residency program for underserved communities. Starting with 8 ninth graders, Chris Bischof and Helen Kim started Eastside College Preparatory School in 1996 at a picnic table in a Palo Alto park.

Since then, the school has grown tremendously; it currently has more than 340 students enrolled along with 59 faculty members. More than 497 students have graduated from Eastside and have been accepted at some of the country’s most prestigious universities such as Stanford, UC Berkeley, Yale, among many others.

To celebrate Eastside's arduous path to success. we reinvigorated Eastside’s graphic identity and for its 4 sections of the student dormitories in order to instill a sense of pride, inspire a commitment for excellence, and promote positivity in the community.

Logo rationale

The main concept is based on building bricks, referencing the slow but steady growth of the school.

The flexible nature of the identity is reflected by the ability to arrange the bricks in a variety of layouts.

Eastside dormitories are named after the alma matter of the school’s donors.

Flags

We designed a flag for the school itself as well as flag patches for each of the different dorm houses to promote pride and stewardship.

Main Eastside flag: California Redwood represents East Palo Alto. Star pointing to the east represents guidance and school’s name. Star also pays homage to the state of California.

House flags (starting clockwise from top left)—Cal House, Cornell House, Illinois House, Yale House

Patterns

The following is a unique repeating pattern containing hidden elements that represent the school’s values and spirit.

Eastside repeat pattern

Laundry tags

Composition notebook

Enviromental graphics

The Eastside mosaic theme is carried on in every instance of the identity, including wayfinding applications and murals. This modular system allows easy interchangeable parts that can be updated as the school expands.

Campus map

Room signage

Dorm wayfinding

Mural with Eastside's values

Typographic mural

Doortags

We developed individual detachable doortags that were given to each incoming student in order to promote common interests and goals within the student body. Specific scholastic achievements that students would collect throughout the school year would be also placed on the doortags. These students would be rewarded with Award pins (see Memorabilia section) at the end of the school year.

We developed individual avatars for each student. The mosaic aesthetic allowed for easy interchangeable parts that could mix and match to create a large combination of possible avatars.

Posters

Several motivational posters with positive and encouraging messages were designed for placement across the dormitory hallways. The artwork was inspired by one of the most awesome street artists ever, ESPO.

Motivation posters:

Memorabilia

We created a Welcome Kit containing an organizer, rulebook, keycard, and shirt in order to instill a sense of prestige within the new incoming students.

The Eastside Welcome Kit includes a notebook, hall pass, rule book, and a t-shirt featuring the new Eastside logo.

We also created lapel pin awards that would be awarded to students for a distinct scholastic achievement at the end of the school year. These awards are not just objects of desire, but they’re physical remnants of a student’s hard work, perseverance, and success.

Lapel pin awards.

Athletics

Eastside’s basketball and soccer uniforms were given a complete overhaul, starting from the crests, all the way to the custom numbering on the jerseys.