MICA School For Professional & Continuing Studies

Overview

The Story. With one of the richest legacies in the arts and one of the top art schools in the country, the 190 year-old Maryland Institute College of Art [MICA] hired us to design a print/digital campaign to help increase enrollment in the School For Professional and Continuing Studies program (SFPCS). As an alumna, Marcia had the opportunity to enroll in continuing studies courses after she graduated, enhancing the skills and talents she had cultivated during her attendance. Drawing upon the time that she spent at MICA during her undergraduate and post-graduate years, we were able to create a digital campaign that was genuine of Marcia’s educative and intuitive experience at the school and combined it with program research insights (logic) provided by the school’s marketing department.
The Design Solution. Using the research data that the client had collected regarding their target audience, current SFPCS enrollment, and MICA’s brand standard guidelines, we came up with the concept “artist meets the professional.”

While MICA is an art school—which many perceive as eclectic—the campaign was developed around MICA’s traditionally based brand standards, ensuring unity between the history of the college and its innovative direction. We strategically developed the tagline, hired a photographer, selected models, and chose a copy writer for the campaign, all the while keeping the brand voice of the client in mind. We then crafted digital illustrations using photographs of each model, displaying the intersecting lives of both the professional and the artist. The result was a clean advertising campaign that reflected the classically modern, innovative edge of the school.
Shown: The City Paper print advertisement, the digital illustrations of the final two concepts that were presented to the client, and the leaderboard advertisement