Ella
Learning Elevated
A brand and visual system that made the LMS feel approachable, human, and genuinely worth logging into.
Learning Management Systems are a category of software that almost everyone in education is forced to use and almost no one actually likes. Students log on to find their homework and end up clicking through six different tabs to figure out what’s due. Parents try to follow along and give up. Teachers spend more time managing the platform than teaching with it.
Ella is built to fix that, and it needed a brand that signals the difference the moment you encounter it.
When I was at Cooper, Levy & Partners, we helped this new player in the LMS space develop everything end-to-end: the name, the identity, the look and feel, the voice, the website, the app, and the full system that brings it all to life.
The result reads like what an LMS should have felt like all along. Clear. Human. Just a little bit surprising. Learning elevated.
Brand system
Because we were on the ground floor of this experience, we had a chance to play a part in building the brand assets the right way. Most brand books are bolted on to existing brand rules and end up being bloated, useless tools few ever engage with.
But for Ella, it became our bible. Every foundational choice we made defined everything that would come next. A custom word mark meant to show Elevated learning. A typography pairing built around a modern, visually pleasing face via Magenos. A palette of navy, slate, sunshine, and coral. Complete iconography set. And clear direction for photography, illustration, and voice.
Brand touchpoints
From there, the system extends into every brand touchpoint Ella needs to be visible: The website. The mobile app interface. An email and social media template system. A full stationery suite. And of course, the apparel and swag. All of it built to scale alongside Ella as the company grows out of launch and into national distribution.
Campaign applications
We extended the system into every place a student, parent, educator, or administrator might run into Ella in the wild.
OOH and transit takeovers across the Bay Area. BART interior cards on the morning commute. Light rail wraps along the Embarcadero. Conference booth design built around the line The future of learning is human. Editorial features and brand-led storytelling inside the platform itself.
Photo illustration
And to anchor all of it, we built Ella a custom photo illustration library: a mixed-media collage system that pairs cinematic black-and-white student portraits with hand-drawn elements, color blocks, and editorial textures, so Ella's marketing never has to look like anyone else's in the category. Because no one needs to see another stock photo of a student sitting under a tree with a laptop, right?