The Hive Early Learning Centres
Where every child shines bright — online too.
A sister brand to The Fern under the i9 Education group, The Hive needed its own distinct visual identity while sharing the same reliable booking and content infrastructure.
Location
Australia
Completed
2025
Services
4
Where the project began
Background
The Hive is a network of early learning centres built around a warm, encouraging philosophy — "where your child shines bright" — operating alongside sibling brands in the same education group.
Objectives
Establish The Hive as its own confident brand, distinct from its sister centres, while reusing proven, reliable underlying systems for bookings and content management rather than starting from zero.
Audience
Parents comparing early learning centres by warmth, program quality, and how easy it is to book a visit and enrol.
What we were solving for
Needed a visual identity distinct enough from sibling brands to stand on its own, not read as a reskin
Real, warm photography of educators and children needed a layout that let it breathe rather than compete with UI chrome
Multiple centres again meant a content structure that scales without a rebuild per location
Promotional offers needed the same staff-editable flexibility as the rest of the group's sites
Planning before a single pixel
Reviewed The Hive's existing brand assets — the honeycomb mark, warm orange palette — to plan a UI that amplifies rather than dilutes them
Benchmarked the parent enquiry journey to keep booking friction as low as its sister-brand sites
Planned an image-forward homepage structure suited to the brand's warmer, more personal photography style
Reused the group's proven centre-finder and CMS architecture to avoid rebuilding solved problems
Building the visual language
A confident orange-and-black palette with a honeycomb motif, warm rather than corporate
Large-format educator-and-child photography as the emotional anchor of the homepage
Typography pairing a friendly serif accent with a clean sans-serif for structure and legibility
Consistent component patterns shared with the group's other sites, styled distinctly for this brand
Engineering it properly
Built on the same Next.js, React, and Tailwind CSS foundation as the group's other centre sites for consistency and speed
Headless CMS content model adapted to The Hive's specific programs and centre data
Tour-booking and enquiry flows wired to the group's shared backend for consistent lead handling
Deployed on AWS, sharing infrastructure patterns proven across the broader education group
What shipped
What it achieved
Improvements described qualitatively — presented honestly, not inflated.
A Distinct, Warm Identity
A brand that reads as its own, not a copy of its sister centres.
Consistent Booking Experience
The same low-friction tour and enrolment path parents get across the group.
Shared, Proven Infrastructure
Reliable systems reused rather than rebuilt, without sacrificing brand distinction.
Fast on Every Device
Image-rich pages that still load quickly on mobile.
Brand in the details
Brand Palette
Primary
#171412
Secondary
#F5821F
Wordmark
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