UNT Freshman Recruiting

In Brief

The Need: Each year, UNT conducts a recruiting campaign to bring in the right students for the right degrees to the university. The First Time in College (FTIC) Viewbook is the flagship creative for that campaign.

Skills In This Case Study:

  • Art Direction
  • Writing Consultation
  • Project Management

The Result: Art direction, design, and content that carried over across the recruiting campaigns for FTIC, transfer, and graduate students across all media.

Most importantly, a record total enrollment of nearly 38,000 students.

Refined Requirements

With so many universities to choose from in Texas alone, it was important to differentiate UNT from the rest by highlighting the culture of the university itself and the city of Denton and its geographic location while never losing sight of the core mission of higher education.

Art Direction Needs:

  • Art direction setting this campaign apart from the competition but also unique to UNT
  • Art direction that could be easily used across media and by internal partners
  • Photography and videography styling to match the above
  • A comprehensive visual language clearly separate of previous years’ campaigns

Messaging Needs:

  • Content and editorial styling that communicates the key differentiator of the university
  • Content and editorial styling that can be readily adopted by internal partners
  • Balancing the key differentiator of UNT against the key goal of educating students

Research

To orient this campaign, key research goals were outlined:

  • Integrate qualitative and quantitative data from surveys, focus groups, and informal conversations to identify:
    • Prospective student emotional and educational needs
    • Student decisionmaker partners (parents, etc) emotional and practical needs
  • Understand the cultural identity and public perception of the university, the city of Denton, and Dallas-Fort Worth
  • Identify trends and projected trends within education and media consumed by the audience groups

Synthesis and Direction

Research provided four key directives:

  • Think of the student as a human first and student second, allowing this to dictate the narrative
  • Use brand colors and the 1890 rebrand to frame the university history to establish credibility
  • Draw from the “quirky” perception of UNT and Denton to provide differentiating cultural and lifestyle value
  • Combine fields of study with location in the Dallas-Fort Worth region to answer the question of internship and employment opportunities

Additionally, research provided visual design elements, the ideal content tone, and video/photography styling for the campaign.

Implementation

Directives turned into action through:

  • A human-centered narrative that balances the goals of the student as they learn with their cultural and emotional needs in their life away from academics
  • An art direction style that focuses on the human, showing diverse students in a diverse community, with action-as-it-happens in order to allow the audience to put themselves into the narrative
  • The creation of a visual library for use across the campaign, including instruction for how to contribute to the library
  • The creation of a photography and video library with the same objective as above
  • Creative leadership, collaboration, and consultation for internal partners to support the directives and action