CASE STUDY: TechZone environmental, way-finding & promo

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CASE STUDY: TechZone

Environmental and promotional way-finding campaign for an internal drop-in "genius bar" style tech support area for Great-West Lifeco employees within their three main head offices across Canada.

⁕ Award winning campaign

RGD's In-House Design Award recipient, Award of Merit, 2021

Campaign launch dates

London head office – The London Life Insurance Company: June 5, 2018

Toronto head office – The Canada Life Assurance Company: September 26, 2018

Winnipeg head office – The Great-West Life Assurance Company: September 26, 2018

Target audience

All 11,000 employees of the three insurance companies across Canada with the primary focus being the London head office. The secondary focus was the Toronto and Winnipeg head offices.

The wordmark design, was created in a simplistic, Sans-Serif typeface to ensure good legibility and readability at any size

Environmental vinyl graphics

The initial designs of the space where created with a sense of motion towards the entrance and invoked a fun, friendly environment.

This design was used to inspire all other graphics used throughout the TechZone launches.

The exterior vinyl wall wrap of the space in the London head office. The use of the various shapes overlaid in a circular fashion that created a sense of movement thats visually interesting and drew employees towards the entrance of the space.

A close-up detailed view of the wall graphics

Objective

The objective was to increase employee engagement and create positive excitement around the new technology launching across the organization over a year and a half period.

The business wanted to draw attention to the new internal tech support services available and provide a drop-in space for learning and exploring new equipment for employees. We were tasked to design graphics for the new space to help promote it. The success level of the initial London launch would help determine if similar spaces would be added to our other head-office locations.

The creation of the TechZone space offers employees a new hands-on experience with knowledgeable tech

support services. It creates an engaging and positive “genius bar” style experience for internal employees

to receive support for their technology related questions and to allow them to explore new hardware and software available to them. The TechZone also offers in-person and digital workshops and seminars about software and tools available to employees to promote more effective and efficient ways of working.

Overall, the friendly design and attention getting graphics used to promote the new space had a positive impact on employee’s opinions and tech support offered by the organization.

Branding note: We intentionally kept the branding neutral and stayed away from using any of our three existing branding elements. That was done to avoid interfering with the planned 2019 amalgamation of London Life, Great-West Life and Canada Life companies and the new brand launch under The Canada Life Assurance Company in January 2020.

The specs of the full design of the exterior of the space. That featured an angle cut that wrapped around the edge of the wall provides a snippet of intrigue for what is around the corner.

The frosted vinyl entry way specs with cut vinyl lettering for the wordmark and hours of operation.

The exterior vinyl graphics that were installed over top of the solid marble wall.

“The design elements used in TechZone created an atmosphere that was energetic and approachable, a refreshing reprieve from the bureaucratic mundanities that one generally associates with tech support at work.”

– Jonathan Teixeira, TechZone Project Lead, Canadian Technologies, Great-West Lifeco

The interior vinyl wall decal with frosted glass vinyl door design. This image also showcases the computer desktop graphics created on the various hardware models available to employees.

Challenges

Challenges included boosting employee perspectives about the new technology rollouts and overcome the

stigmas associated with it.

Based on past experiences, a majority of employees did not have positive experiences with new technology

implementations within our organizations and often dreaded any changes to their daily workflows. We wanted to create a friendly and approachable environment to bring employees into the new TechZone space and provide a positive atmosphere to get them engaged and excited about the new technology approach.

The quick timeline requirements for the creation and execution of all the graphics was a big challenge – there was less than a month from the time our design team was engaged in the project to the launch. There was also a limited budget available and a strong desire to make a big splash for the launch of the London location as it was being used as a proof of concept for new spaces at our Toronto and Winnipeg head offices.

Employee experience and engagement were two main factors we focused on to boost and shift their mindsets. We devised a plan to create the most effective ways to draw attention within the 630,200 square foot corporate office and provided as much exposure to the 2,300 staff on site as possible. We implemented a series of way-finding graphics leveraging the proximity of the main building’s entrances to the TechZone space as well as utilizing central areas of the building to draw more attention to the launch.

The photo on the left is the view of the TechZone space from the main Queens lobby entrance of the London ON head office building. As you can see it's surrounded by a sea of white marble. The photo on right shows the view from the exterior of the building.

Promotional and way-finding materials for the London head office launch

This is the main Queens lobby graphics that were created for the launch day and remained in place for just over a months time. We wanted to maximize the impact to employees while being mindful of the budget and tight firm launch date. Which led us to be very strategic with the design and production choices for all of the launch tactics.

The main Queens Street lobby entrance: The graphics were strategically designed and placed to draw your attention up to the new TechZone space as soon as you entered the building.

The hanging banner designs featured simple and inviting messaging that drew your eye up to the space its self. Intentionally not revealing too much information on what it had to offer.

“The way-finding promotional design really helped bring awareness to the whole building and made it easy to find the TechZone as you really could not miss it with how well it was designed and where it was placed.”

– Jonathan Teixeira, TechZone Project Lead, Canadian Technologies, Great-West Lifeco

The large vinyl floor decal featured a grit texture for anti-slip and was 7 feet in diameter. The simplistic messaging was selected to really draw employees attention up to the new space.

A different angle of the full Queens lobby with the graphics in place.

Way-finding materials

From the secondary Dufferin entrance, we took a different approach, taking advantage of the fact that you enter the building onto the first floor instead of the ground level like you do from the Queens lobby entrance. We used a unique dot trail design that led all the way from the lobby to the TechZone space.

The blue colour used for the dot trail was adjusted to best standout on all 3 flooring types and flooring colours that they needed to be placed on. We also added additional way-finding elements within the main elevator banks at both Queens and Dufferin lobby entrances and placed the directional way-finding popup banners strategically within high traffic flows of the building.

Directional way-finding popup banners: The left design was placed at the top of the escalators on the first floor to draw attention to the new space around the corner. The right design was placed within various common areas of the building to draw attention to the TechZone space, such as outside of our internal coffee shop and cafeteria.

The dot trail: The dots were placed at a distance of 3 feet apart and were 6” in diameter. There was a total of 85 small dots used and 5 larger directional dots that were 24” in diameter. These were designed with snippets of information to peek employees interest and were strategically spaced out within high traffic flows along the corridor.

“The bold design was attention catching and put TechZone on full display for all employees. It was next to impossible to miss!”

– Jonathan Teixeira, TechZone Project Lead, Canadian Technologies, Great-West Lifeco

The dot trail went right to the entrance of the TechZone space.

Tent-cards were placed on all tables within the cafeteria areas. The left design was from the Canada Life head office launch in Toronto ON and the right design was from the London Life head office launch in London ON.

Launch event invitation cards: The TechZone staff greeted employees at the main 2 entrances on the launch day and handed out the invites. The event featured a ribbon cutting ceremony and cake.

They handed out swag for those in attendance of the launch event: Branded cloud stress "balls" and lanyards.

“The Business was blown away by the design work, it created a buzz among the whole building, which spread to our other head offices in the country and put TechZone as a main topic of conversation. This conversation resulted in two more locations being created in our other two head office locations.”

– Jonathan Teixeira, TechZone Project Lead, Canadian Technologies, Great-West Lifeco

Winnipeg MB head office location designs: The exterior wall of the space is curved which required additional considerations to effectively accommodate it appropriately. Also the space contained a large pillar that was utilize as a design feature, while ensuring to not block other elements of the interior environment.

Toronto ON head office location designs: I chose to incorporate the exterior glass wall of the TechZone location to maximize the exposure of the environmental graphics. Additionally, we strategically incorporated the glass railing adjacent to the TechZone to be seen from a distance to help aid employees in locating the tech services.

Success and results

We devised a strategic design plan, taking into consideration the tight budgetary restraints. This enabled us to execute all of the London way-finding graphics for a mere 6% of our overall budget.

For launch day in addition to all the graphics and way-finding materials being installed, we had the TechZone staff greeting employees at both main entrances. They handed out swag and invitations to the launch event later that day. More than 600 people attended the event and came by to check out what the TechZone had to offer.

The buzz of the new tech service continued for well over a month following the London launch. It brought in an average of 60-80 employees through the space each day. This also alleviated some calls to our Service Desk support line allowing them to focus more on critical technology concerns.

The technology improvements implemented through the TechZone have made a very positive impact across the organization and have been instrumental for transitioning employees to work from home over the course of the pandemic. It continues to be seen as a great success story throughout the organization.