Smart Visual Identities: A Design Challenge for Smart Learning Environments

Abstract

Smart environments in the context of education have been embedding technologies easily adoptable by all and that support users in optimising life, greatly resorting in data visualisation tactics. This means every citizen is also expected to develop their design literacy in order to effectively be a data contributor, an information coder/decoder and an evolving knowledgeable human being. This paper speculates on the relevance of investing in brand design activities, in particular within “smart visual identities”, which configure as a meaningful and holistic branding resource: besides serving as a customisable window of the meaningful data collected on the user within a smart learning ecosystem (in this case university campuses), it is also a remarkable asset for the development of bonds between the user and said environment (increased brand loyalty via belonging). Seven brands of campuses that have been used in research of smart learning environments were analysed and four workshops were delivered at two different universities. The results show that the analysed campuses do not rely on smart visual identities and the workshops allowed the identification of features that a customisable smart brand identity should entail. It is argued that by having to customise a highly relatable brand identity (such as the one of a University is to its learners), individuals will increasingly develop their design literacy, while using the campus in a sustainable way.