Education Perfect

Education Perfect grew from a language-learning tool built by two brothers in Dunedin into a platform serving 5,000 schools and 1.7 million subject enrolments worldwide. But the business had outgrown its brand. The product, the market and the ambition had all moved on; the story hadn't. We worked with EP's leadership to rebuild the brand's strategic foundations — starting with a question the company had never fully answered.

The Problem
When a company scales as fast as EP had, its brand can date pretty quickly. Nothing fails outright, it just stops representing what the business has become. That was EP in 2023. The platform had evolved well beyond its origins, the competitive set had shifted, and the brand was telling an old story. Fixing it meant going below the surface — and the first workshop surfaced a critical debate: is EP an education company or a technology company? Landing that answer (an education company, powered by technology — the way Canva is a design company powered by tech) became the foundation everything else was built on.
The Strategy
The next decision was about the audience. EP's platform is used daily by students, but students don't choose it. Educators do. So the brand needed to belong to educators — and crucially, to position EP as an ally in their work, not a technology that competes with it.

The problem EP helps solve sits inside the classroom: every student learns differently, but no teacher can deliver one-on-one teaching to a class of thirty, six times a day. As one EP employee put it during discovery, "it's a long walk to the classroom."

That gave the brand a clear value proposition — personal learning, at scale — and a focussed organising idea: to amplify the impact educators make. Not just a claim about the product, but a statement of whose side EP is on too.

We also put a provocation on the table: was "Perfect" even the right word for a brand about progress rather than end states? EP kept the name — but with a new answer for what perfect means, encapsulated in the line: progress makes perfect.
The Outcome
The strategy was adopted company-wide, way beyond the marketing team alone. EP's Chief Product Officer sat inside the core brand team, so what the new brand promises is reflected in what the product builds. The new positioning continues to shape EP's go-to-market approach, messaging and identity.

As CMO Rachel Jenkins put it, being part of the project was a career highlight — "a transformative moment, with brand thinking at the heart of company-wide change."
“Amplify your impact” lockup with a green arrow mark
“A is for Amplify” poster with a pink geometric figure on blue
Collage of Education Perfect posters in bright geometric colours
“Remember why you love teaching” line with an orange geometric mark
Education Perfect brand posters “Defining the future of teaching, together” on a white wall
Pin badge with a colourful geometric heart on a yellow background
Poster “Defining the future of teaching together” on a bookshelf
Education Perfect brand cards with geometric animal shapes on a pale background

Get in touch

We take on select projects, working with companies who are inventing or reinventing.

If there’s a project you’d like to talk to us about, please get in touch.


Thank you for your message! We'll be in touch.

Auckland

Roles

We're Hiring

Find Out More ↗

We are looking for Senior and Intermediate Brand designers to join our team. People who love brand, design, variety, and working collaboratively.

Shop Future Demand

Red “Future Demand” book standing against a red background

Future Demand Vol. 2

Buy Now ↗

How marketing to tomorrow’s customers will break your brand out of the performance trap

Social Updates

LinkedIn

22 Oct

Helping Partly build the future of repair

Dark poster reading "Our $20,000 creativity and innovation scholarship is now open" with Previously Unavailable and AUT logos

Instagram

01 Oct

Our creativity and innovation scholarship with AUT is back.

PU Air wordmark in teal and blue letters with two pink hibiscus flowers on a cream background

Instagram

25 Sept

We took to the 'skies' for our annual mid-winter Christmas party.

Where in the world is James Hurman?

Auckland
36.8485° S, 174.7633° E

By The Numbers

$500m+

Launched
Companies

40+

Equity
Companies

4

Venture Funds

Weekly Whakatauki

Ko te pae tawhiti whāia kia tata, ko te pae tata whakamaua kia tīna
Seek to bring distant horizons closer, and sustain and maintain those that have been arrived at

Bookshelf

Cognitive Surplus – Clay Shirky

AUX

Sultans of Swing – Dire Straits

Overheard at Previously

“Walking is actually good for you”

Studio Snaps

Black and white photo of people chatting in a room
Black and white photo of a man sitting on a sofa
Black and white photo of a dog sitting indoors
Black and white photo of two women standing together smiling
Black and white photo of a busy open-plan office
Black and white photo of people in a living space
Black and white photo of people gathered at an event

Clients & Partners

Icehouse Ventures
AF Drinks
Ārepa
Fonterra
Emma Lewisham
MedWorld
DB Breweries
Education Perfect
Torrens University Australia
OnBoard
Mānuka Health
Ideally
Tracksuit
Simplicity
The Comfort Group
NZ Trade & Enterprise
Compostic
New & Improved
Blunt
Genesis
Cannes Lions
Jade Software
Bankwest
NeuAudio
Nibblish
Media Design School
Skyline
ECC
Caffeine
Jade
Blackbird
NZME
TRA
Aera
Abroad
Constellation
Tika
Soul Capital
Friends That Invest
Hiraya Ventures
Appetise
Icehouse
Manifest
Lumos
Simfuni
Levno
Kamal
Re-Leased
Extraordinary
Yarken
Nevam
Aglow
Abodo
Spoke
Andfoods
Marloo
Anthony Harper
Aplenty
Bustle