The Unicorn Institute was our research project exploring the gaps between UX education and the UX industry. We evolved this research into the user experience design school, Center Centre.
As you may know…
Center Centre offers a two-year, on-site, full-time program—the first and only of its kind—that prepares students to be industry-ready junior UX designers. Center Centre is authorized as a postsecondary educational institution by the Tennessee Higher Education Commission (THEC). We plan to start courses in 2015.
A little secret behind the Unicorn Institute
Something you may not know…
Before we were authorized as a school by THEC, we couldn’t legally call ourselves a “school.” If we did, we’d be in big trouble with the state of Tennessee. We didn’t want that, but we did want to talk publicly about our research and our findings. So we created a research project that allowed us to share what we were learning about the gaps between UX education and the UX industry. We named our research project the Unicorn Institute.
We chose the name Unicorn Institute based on what we learned in our research. We interviewed dozens of UX hiring managers and their teams. We learned that hiring managers needed well-rounded UX designers. These designers needed to do many things like write content, code HTML prototypes, and conduct usability tests. Because well-rounded designers were hard to find, they became known as “unicorns.” Our rebranding process:
- Rebranding is no small feat. We made a lot of changes across different channels. Our rebranding process had many steps:
- We audited the content on the Unicorn Institute website and the Center Centre website.
- We identified what content was still relevant to Center Centre and what content was outdated.
- We determined what content on the Unicorn Institute website was still relevant to Center Centre, but not yet on Center Centre’s website.
- We rewrote this content to match Center Centre’s updated voice and tone.
- We added updated content and new content to the Center Centre website.
- Over time, we removed outdated content from the Unicorn Institute website. (Removing content in phases made the process manageable. It also allowed us to complete other tasks for the school while we rebranded.)
- We reduced the Unicorn Institute website to a landing page that links visitors to Center Centre’s website.
- We updated our email newsletter template with Center Centre’s branding.
- We combined our two Twitter accounts, @UnicornInstitut and @CenterCentre, into one account, @CenterCentre.
- We updated all remaining social media pages like Facebook, LinkedIn, and Instagram.
- And now, we’re letting you know that we’re officially Center Centre.
We still ♥ unicorns
Even though we’re now Center Centre, we’re still creating unicorns—well-rounded junior UX designers.
Over the past few years, supporters, friends, and family have given us many thoughtful (albeit a bit tacky) unicorn gifts. To honor these special creatures (and the special creatures that gifted them to us), we proudly display the unicorns at Center Centre.
Looking forward in 2015
There’s a lot of magic happening at Center Centre.
We’re lining up partner companies, interviewing student applicants, and further developing assessment criteria, grading procedures, and learning experiences.
We look forward to the rest of the magic that 2015 has in store.