With a brand as large as Indiana Wesleyan University - it can be a challenge to communicate to new audiences. With most deliverables being created for college students and adults - engaging children is a unique but exciting challenge.

With the chance to show local children who IWU is, I had to navigate the visual direction in a way that promoted excitement while also used color to differentiate groups and allow the younger students to navigate and understand the design besides just words.

What results is a little booklet in four different colors for the four separate groups navigating the campus. Using texture and Wesley Wildcat strategically we are able to communicate and speak to a new and younger audience than normal.

Never2Young is a uniquely designed gathering to prepare and encourage middle school students to make an impact for Christ. I was tasked with coming up with the creative direction for the marketing materials and lanyards used at the event. Using research about design trends I implemented a design that merged collage and textural design to appeal to the youth age while staying within the IWU brand and maintaining IWU’s signature red.

Brand Culture Fusion was a project that originated within our team. How could we help aid our fellow employees to not only know and understand our brand but be ambassadors as well?

I played the role of copywriter and design director for this project.

My first task was reading and gathering all the bits of IWU history, vision, and mission then compiling them into a series of six booklets. As I wrote I crafted a vision and learned key insights which would later be used to carry out the design framework. The writing was engaging and sometimes humorous since the audience was internal.

The goal was to get this into the hands of employees by holding launches for each of the six booklets through a series of webinars run by our marketing team. Because employees were dispersed between several states I came up with the idea to design ebooks that would work on our employees smartphones for them to be able to access easily.

When it came to design I got to work with a new style since this was internal and we could be a little more fun and open with our brand while still sticking to brand standards.

Although Brand Culture Fusion was never launched - I worked hard and spent a lot of time creating these ebooks and designing them so that they would be effective at launch. Who knows - perhaps these ideas and concepts will emerge again and tell the story of IWU once more.

How do we create tangible experiences for a group of students taking most of their classes online?

Students who come to IWU are some of our biggest representatives and our highest source of recruitment through word of mouth referrals. Both of these initiatives - the IWU Alumni Ambassador Program and Friend to Friend seek to make it easier for our students to tell their friends about the ways IWU has helped them achieve their education. On each of these initiatives, I worked from the idea stage and helped to build not only the branding consistent with IWU, but also the way these messages are delivered.

IWU Alumni Ambassador Program
The design added a bit of enthusiastic flare and genuine excitement since this communication was student facing. Imagine that big red and white box landing on your porch full of swag and ways to get the news out about IWU. Along with their box alumni join a monthly email that keeps them up to date at what’s going on at IWU and prompts them to tell their own story.

Friend to Friend
At graduation students receive a piece of paper - one that holds power and opens doors. Using this idea of paper and folding it to send others on their way allows graduates to introduce their friends and family to the transforming education that IWU can offer.

One of my favorite parts of both of these projects is that they allowed me to build an entire campaign and take part in the design process, build custom illustrations, and exercise my creative writing skills.

So you’ve received a diploma.
It’s paper with power.
POWER TO PROPEL.
Propel you to new heights.
Propel you to new opportunities.
Propel you forward.
Harness the power of paper and propel others to power.
Take a card from your pack.
Pick a pal to propel and encourage a path of prestige.
Pal to Pal.
FRIEND TO FRIEND

Globey is the end result of a several month long professional development project that I came up with to help Indiana Wesleyan University’s National & Global programs communicate with their audience in new and fun ways. What resulted was Globey, a spunky and fun loving globe who injects materials with humor and gives the marketing department another voice to use in communication.

The following is my professional develpemt proposal I wrote to kick the project off.

What does it look like to build a copy first strategy for marketing that adds life, humor, and fun to our brand? While still maintaining prestige as an academic institution, can we use story based marketing to draw people in? What stands out about our marketing in the educational marketing landscape… what could? How do we add that personalized idea of welcoming and caring from the moment they first meet our brand? What is our brand voice? Who is speaking for our brand? Do we have a mascot/character (at this point Wesley the Wildcat was a solely IWU-Marion piece, now he is an overarching mascot) that can interact with our customer base in a way that makes them think there is something different about us?

This idea of story based marketing began as an idea I had while browsing a daily design blog I follow called Brand New that reviews the latest rebrands and branding identities of high caliber or character. In particular, the post that morning was a brand identity for Story Cafe in Sydney, Australia by agency, For the People. I have always loved For The People’s work as their projects are very grounding and often relate to place.

Is there a way to help ground our online environment through place branding in way that makes people feel they belong and are part of something larger than themselves?

One thing that has been on our to do list for a while is developing a brand character, this project is aimed at answering that question while developing it in a strategic way for use in select marketing initiatives. While traditional advertising can grab people, there is often a sea of sameness in the way online education is marketed. Although we have broken out of some of this sea of sameness, what ways can we be truly be innovative and break the mold while still communicating clearly to our audience in a way they will remember. The goal is to make people smile and remember that IWU is a place where stories are told, perhaps even one day theirs.

First thing is research. We want to gather examples of others who are telling stories successfully in marketing. Also how are the delivering these stories through character. Beyond the inspiration of Story Café are there other ways to achieve this? Where can we tell stories that capture attention? How are other universities telling stories or being innovative in their marketing? What examples of brand characters are out in the marketplace? How do we make sure our character(s) feel like university prestige and not childish cartoons?

Define the scope. Once research is complete the next phase will be to figure out what sort of stories we want to tell? Are the characters and design based entirely off the copy? How many characters – one for each school? One for each program? Where are these stories told? How can we incorporate them both internally and externally? What type of voice do these characters speak in? Are the characters human or abstract?

Brainstorm and ideate the path forward. Now begins the fun part of crafting and expanding upon the research to figure out exactly what this could look like. Time to begin writing up drafts, sketching ideas, and seeing what rises to the surface.

Write compelling stories. We want this to be story first in many ways with the design coming along to support. What needs to be said, what does the story demand. The stories dictate the design not the other way around – because words have power. Design can only elevate the existing elements. These stories become the driver, a piece people look forward to reading and act us inspiration or engaging content for those who see it. They view our work not solely as marketing, but as intriguing, enticing, and appetizing. Are these works of fiction, short snippets, overheard conversations, poems, all of the above?

Design the life of the party. So while story is central you have to have some characters to help tell it. Who are they? Is the audience a character? Let’s pull out our creative punches, get down into Illustrator and bring the brand to life. Remember our audience is professional adults, but that doesn’t mean there can’t be an element of fun. We want to stop people in their track, think about our cleverness, and walk on to return to us at the moment they need what we have to offer.

Pull it all together. The stories are beginning to be written. The characters have sprung to life. Let’s mash ‘em together and see where they belong. Can they help create conversations on social? Are there ways they make small appearances in print? How do they appear outside of marketing as we transform all touchpoints across departments?