NHL Stenden University of Applied Sciences: from brand complexity to scalable consistency

NHL Stenden was formed in 2018 through the merger of Stenden University of Applied Sciences and NHL University of Applied Sciences.

With thousands of employees, multiple campuses and a wide range of academies, NHL Stenden produces a large volume of communications every day. As a result, maintaining brand consistency is an ongoing challenge.

After the merger, NHL Stenden set out to strengthen its brand. For Maran de Boer, Graphic Designer at NHL Stenden, the solution didn't start with technology: it started with design. Together with her colleagues, she further developed the brand identity by strengthening the brand concept, introducing new visual elements and colours, and giving individual academies more flexibility to express their own identity while staying true to the overall brand.

This raised a new challenge: how do you translate a dynamic brand identity into practical tools that hundreds of employees can use every day to create their own communications?

The answer wasn't just about design, but also about usability. New templates were developed to better support employees while ensuring every communication remained consistent with the brand.

The Cordeo Brand Portal plays a key role in making this possible. It enables NHL Stenden to roll out its refreshed brand identity across the entire organisation in a way that is both accessible and easy to use.

As Maran de Boer puts it: "The brand portal enables us to maintain brand consistency while giving employees the freedom to create communication materials efficiently and independently."

Curious to learn how NHL Stenden approached this project, the decisions they made, and the lessons they learned along the way?