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Brand and Creative

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What is a brand?

A brand is what an institution stands for in the hearts and minds of the people with whom that institution is trying to connect. It is more than a logo, a color palette, a name, a tagline, or a campaign. A brand is cumulative—the result of all the touch points in a shared journey with each individual. 

Our goal is for Curry College to authentically live and express our brand in such a way that we connect with individuals who are attracted to the essence of who we are. That connection promotes understanding, affinity, and ultimately drives engagement with Curry College.

Brand building requires mindful intent and a long-term commitment. We want to speak and act with consistency, clarity, and conviction to create a positive brand experience for our community.

Curry partnered with Carnegie Higher Education in the Fall of 2022 to develop and launch a new brand for the College. The Marketing and Communication, Enrollment, and Admission teams have worked closely together with Carnegie on this exciting and important work!

The following are just some of the key pieces of this project.

Identifying Curry’s Personality

Carnegie’s work centers around identifying an authentic “personality” of the College, as if it were a human entity. The branding work began with gathering input on who we are and who we want to be as well as gaining a data-informed understanding of how Curry College is currently perceived in the competitive market. This work included:

  • External perception research
  • Discovery interviews with leadership team
  • Internal survey
  • Undergraduate and graduate competitive analysis
  • Facilitated workshops with students, staff, and faculty

In the end, three personality types were chosen that best reflect who we are:

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Curry College Brand Personality


From this work, we then devised strategies to reintroduce the College to its key audiences and constituencies.

Admission Marketing Campaign

The majority of the brand work and budget focuses on marketing Curry’s undergraduate programs to prospective students and families. During this academic year (2023-2024), part of this work is simply raising awareness of what Curry is all about as the initial research showed that many people just don’t know about us or have vague ideas of what we do as a College. The rest of the work is very specific and targeted marketing to high school students who we think would thrive at our school.

Admission Campaign Concept:

This work began Spring 2023 into Fall 2023. Printed collateral development for Fall 2024 began in late Fall 2023. The campaign theme is “Made For You.” It is typical for colleges to use each unique campaign/theme for a few years. Curry’s latest theme was “Become/You Belong Here.”

Here are some examples of the design look and feel we developed for the “Made For You” campaign:

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Made for You Campaign Concepts

Digital Marketing Campaign:

This is an extensive campaign that focuses on Google Ads and various social media channels. We are using video and still photography content in these ads.

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Curry College Digital Ads Collage

Brand Review

In some cases, you may wish to create your own project/publication rather than involve the Office of Marketing and Communications. In order to ensure that look and feel are consistent with college brand standards, publications must be submitted to us for brand review.

Print Publications

An average publication or project takes three to six weeks to produce. Small jobs or revisions to existing publications often take less time, but new or large projects can take eight to 12 weeks. As you plan, remember also to consider the amount of time needed to mail or otherwise distribute your publication. As we develop your production schedule, we will also build in time for any web or digital initiatives that are part of it, to ensure that web content promoted via to print mailing or digital distribution is approved and live prior to distribution, as well as to insure timely outreach via social media around launch events or campaign kickoffs.

We will make every effort to meet deadlines and assist in emergency situations, but our commitment to quality control and brand consistency requires that immediate turnarounds be exceptions to normal workflow.

Preparing Copy:

The process of preparing copy applies to in-house publications, but also is applicable to projects you complete on your own or with external vendors.

Our staff can write marketing and other copy for publications and other projects (including digital) when required. Please note that if you wish copy to be written for you, you must include that in the project intake form and discussion.

Proofreading and Approvals:

For most projects, our office will provide digital proofs of the final publication for your approval via either email or our web-based project management system, Basecamp. Campus partners are responsible for proofreading and approving final proofs. Extensive changes made at this point in the process can delay the project. In most cases, we request that proofs are returned within 48 hours. Four rounds of proofs are the maximum number allowed on major print projects, so please be sure to proofread carefully!

Please submit your edits to proofs via email or Basecamp in a Microsoft Word document or use the comment function on the PDF document. When putting together edits, please consider clarity (would you understand what you would like changed, if you read this?) in order to eliminate unnecessary or repetitive rounds of edits. You may also submit a marked-up PDF or hard copy of the publication, if you feel that this will bring additional clarity.

The Office of Marketing and Communications will select a printer based upon cost, availability and right fit. Many print vendors are better suited for some jobs than others; MarComm will use its experience in working with many print vendors to select the best fit and will maximize available funds by gang-printing (printing multiple jobs at once) whenever possible. Relationships with the print vendor, from pre-press to delivery, will be managed by MarComm. Campus partners working outside of our staff may not serve as points of contact for the print vendors.

Mailing

Small mailings can often times be handled by campus partners directly by addressing and then sending through our mail room so First Class postage can be applied, then mailed.

For larger mailings that are printed and mailed from outside vendors the mail list determines the exact quantity to be printed and is due to MarComm one week prior to the release of the printer files. The vendor will then provide a postage estimate and a postage check must be cut and deposited into Curry’s Nonprofit account prior to the mailing going out. Postage is the responsibility of the department paying for the publication.

Publications that are printed by an outside vendor that will be mailed will require a partner supplied mail list. The mail list should include ONLY the data associated with the mailing. Please do not include columns of information that will not appear on the mailing.

Column titles should include the appropriate address field, for example:

Prefix - FirstName - LastName - Address1 - Address2 - Address3 - City - State - Zip - Country

If the publication has additional variable data on a letter, for example, we need to know exactly what info should appear: name (Dear John or Dear Mr. Doe) or name and address. More complicated variable data publications should be discussed with Marketing and Communications.

Delivery

Your publication(s) can be delivered directly to your office or to an off-campus location of your choice, such as a mailing service. Campus partners are responsible for storing publications.

Office of Marketing and Communications print publication services – consultation, photography, copy-editing, design, production, and arranging for printing and mailing -- are free in most cases. Campus partners pay for printing and in special cases, for custom photography or illustration, scanning, and incidental services.

In special cases, campus partners may be billed for freelance design services on projects we cannot design in- house, but we will consult with you ahead of time in such cases and provide an estimate for approval prior to project start.

During the initial meeting with the Office of Marketing and Communications, your project will be assigned a 1- week (copy provided, simple reprints, postcards, etc.), 3-week (copy provided or assigned to MarComm, flyers, brochures, posters, invitations, etc.) or 6-8 week (copy assigned to MarComm, new or large projects, sets, etc.) production timeline. Complex projects such as the Admission "suite" of publications or Curry Magazine will take longer and should be scheduled accordingly. If there is a digital component to your project, web content and review dates will be built into the schedule accordingly.

The following outlines an approximate 1-week production schedule:

  • Day 1: MarComm receives approved copy and artwork, creates and distributes production schedule.
  • Day 5: Proof No. 1 delivered to campus partner
  • Day 7: Proof No. 1 returned to MarComm within 48 hours. If there are no edits, MarComm contacts printer and secures final delivery date, provides final production schedule to campus partner.
  • Day 10: Proof No. 2 delivered to campus partner
  • Day: 12: Proof No. 2 returned to MarComm within 48 hours. MarComm contacts printer and secures final delivery date, provides final production schedule to campus partner.

The following outlines an approximate 3-week production schedule:

  • Day 1: MarComm meets with campus partner to determine copy and artwork needs, creates and distributes production schedule
  • Day 10: MarComm finalizes all copy and artwork**, provides to MarComm designer
  • Day 19: Proof No. 1 delivered to campus partner
  • Day 21: Proof No. 1 returned to MarComm within 48 hours. If there are no edits, MarComm contacts printer and secures final delivery date, provides final production schedule to campus partner.
  • Day 24: Proof No. 2 delivered to campus partner
  • Day: 26: Proof No. 2 returned to MarComm within 48 hours. MarComm contacts printer and secures final delivery date, provides final production schedule to campus partner.

The following outlines an approximate 6-8 week production schedule:*

  • Day 1: MarComm meets with campus partner to determine copy and artwork needs, creates and distributes production schedule.
  • Day 19: MarComm finalizes all copy and artwork**, provides to MarComm designer
  • Day 40: Proof No. 1 delivered to campus partner
  • Day 42: Proof No. 1 returned to MarComm within 48 hours. If there are no edits, MarComm contacts printer and secures final delivery date, provides final production schedule to campus partner.
  • Day 45: Proof No. 2 delivered to campus partner
  • Day: 47: Proof No. 2 returned to MarComm within 48 hours. MarComm contacts printer and secures final delivery date, provides final production schedule to campus partner.

*All production schedules assume two (2) rounds of edits. Additional edits, up to four (4) rounds of edits, will alter schedule. If print publication is not approved following four (4) rounds of edit, the production schedule will be suspended.

**If copy and/or artwork are not approved, production schedule will be amended.