Work Samples - RCLS

Strategy & Branding

When I arrived at RCLS, the school had an exceedingly outdated website, an unattractive Facebook feed, and a complete lack of coherency in its brand. My task, then, was first to sharpen its brand and messaging, leveraging long-beloved images and ideas and harnessing language to better present the school’s “product”: a distinctive PS-grade 8 school experience and education.

Since the board ruled out a complete rebranding, I started first by contracting a designer to update the school’s triple-cross logo and making acceptable changes to its long school name and mission statement, which doubled as a tagline. A new website content management system, the coherence of its visual brand and associated language, and targeted audiences and word-of-mouth marketing became the cornerstones of a communication strategy that was to increase enrollment.

Later, after the school’s brand was sufficiently recognized throughout Rochester, I partnered with a designer to update the visual aspects of various programs within the school––the athletics teams, the early childhood program, and the after-school program. Altogether, the school’s branding and messaging is now cohesive and widely recognized, so much so that the school has waiting lists for entry after two decades of atrophy.

Words…and brands…matter!