Upward Bound

Upward Bound and Upward Bound Math-Science are federally funded educational programs for first generation and low income students, through the University of Wyoming. For qualified students, UB creates a pathway to higher education by providing focused personalized attention, perspective-changing experiences and ongoing academic support.

Our assignment was to gather target insights through various types of research methodologies consisting primarily of stakeholder and target interviews. Based on those insights, we defined the brand’s positioning and key messaging, which helped us create short term marketing materials, but also informed a long term campaign approach. Our primary goal is creating awareness, and generating enrollment of students in Upward Bound programs.

We executed an in-depth strategy deep dive, developed a campaign idea, and created an anthem film (above) to bring it all to life. We executed a focused re-brand with elements consistent with the University of Wyoming brand guidelines. We designed printed banners and postcards for recruiting events, and a toolkit to streamline the internal process of creating marketing materials, and help area coordinators maintain consistency across different regions.

The foundation of the Upward Bound logo is Gotham Bold, an official UW typeface. The most prominent modification was the removal of the “step” within the A, which is symbolic of removing the barriers to college for our member students. This creates and arrow within the word “Upward” that can be highlighted in a few different brand colors as needed. It’s a simple, but unique word mark that lives within university guidelines. It works well printed large on a poser, or embroidered small on a student backpack.

The logo also locks up in various ways with the UW logo and our new tagline “Go places with us.”

The primary marketing channel for coordinators is email, and their primary vehicle is flyers. So, our toolkit was primarily focused on a modular approach to communication that was easily customized for different levels of communication and messaging.