Exams looming? You need Dorkaid!

It’s that time of year again – across the country, thousands of households are in the grip of pre-exam stress in the run-up to GCSEs and A levels.

If your mind goes blank at the thought of writing a dissertation then help is at hand from Dorkaid. The brainchild of Franky Law, dorkaid.co.uk is a website (designed by Pad, of course) that puts school pupils in touch with students who have recently gone through – and passed – the same exams. “I got the idea when I was doing my A levels a few years ago,” said Franky. “I got good grades because I learned all the exam techniques. Of course, you have to know your subject but you also have to know what the examiners are looking for and that’s not something that’s always taught in schools. I thought students would find it easier to relate to someone their own age who has recently gone through the same experience.  It took a few years for me to put the idea into action but now it’s up and running and I’m really excited to see how Dorkaid has taken off.”

Once Franky decided to launch Dorkaid, the project developed momentum very quickly. “I run my own company and was already in discussions with Pad about rebranding and developing a new website. They were great to work with and they ‘got’ what I was looking for straight away. I thought their approach would work well for Dorkaid so I asked them to develop the brand identity and website. They gave me several concepts and one immediately jumped out at me. It’s simple, clean and streamlined. The tagline says it all – Tutoring for students, by students.

Katie Barron was Pad’s designer on the project. She said: “Franky’s brief was great. He knew what he wanted but he left enough room for us to develop the creativity. Our brief was to develop a logo and brand that’s fun and quirky yet also professional, which would appeal to GCSE and university students, but also their parents. Our ‘dork’ character is versatile and gives Franky scope to develop other characters in the same style as the brand grows.”

“I’m really pleased with Pad’s work,” said Franky. “I think they offer great value for money and I’d definitely recommend them. The project has gone very smoothly – we went from concept to launch within a few weeks. In fact, the only problem occurred when we became victims of our own success. The original database wasn’t strong enough to cope with all the interest we received – 1,000 people signed up to Dorkaid within the first two weeks and we quickly realised we would need to strengthen the database to cope with demand.”

As part of the project’s launch, Pad also designed an advert which featured in the Education supplement of the Telegraph in April, boosting figures further and proving that geek really can be chic.