Today at Slush, the world’s leading startup event, Finnish mobile-game developer Supercell announced the opening of Hive, a new type of peer-to-peer project-based coding school in Helsinki. Supercell selected brand design agency Kuudes for the brand strategy, visual identity, digital design and interior architecture of the new school.
Located in the Helsinki industrial district of Sörnäinen, Hive is based on the educational model of the French school École 42. Hive will not have any teachers or classes. Instead, students in the three-year programme will seek and share knowledge through teamwork to solve real-world problems. Similar schools are already open in Paris, San Francisco and Amsterdam, but Hive will be the first academy in the Nordic region to follow the 42 concept.
“We started the cooperation with Kuudes in early 2018, and their ability to bring different entities together in one team convinced us,” says Drussila Hollanda, who led the project at Supercell. “Throughout this year with Kuudes, we have learnt vast amounts about what coding means to our potential students.”
Supercell is creating Hive in response to a shortage of coders in the Nordic region. While the school is funded by Supercell, it serves the broader economy by training world-class coders who can quickly move into different spheres of professional life.
“Together with Supercell, we wanted to build the best coding school in the world, based on the revolutionary École 42 curriculum,” says Kuudes CEO, Jari Danielsson.
“We first conducted a proper groundwork study to better understand coding and the different target groups for the school. Based on the brand strategy we proposed, we have been able to create a consistent design across both digital and physical touchpoints.”
“The work was done by a single team at Kuudes, with the result that we have a coherent brand experience relevant to all our target groups,” says Danielsson.
Kuudes has been Supercell’s partner for research into customer insights, defining the positioning and brand strategy for Hive, as well as designing the visual identity, name and digital channels for the school. Kuudes is currently finishing the spatial designs for the renovated factory building in Helsinki that will be the Hive campus from 2019.
