UR Now

UR Now is a digital platform for the University of Richmond to deliver news, stories, and accomplishments to a worldwide audience. I helped launch the new platform by leading the branding and designing a flexible system for the editorial team to send a contemporary and visually appealing weekly email. The UR Now brand builds on existing university brand elements, like colors and typography, and adds more graphic elements inspired by the architecture of the campus.

My Roles
Branding
UI/UX
Visual Design

Artwork
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I defined two artwork styles for UR Now that enable us to quickly turn around images for featured stories when needed. A photographic collage treatment to enhance poor existing photos and a deconstructed illustration style for features with no suitable photography.

Email
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The email system is designed to be adaptable and accommodate various amounts and types of content. This system empowers the editorial team to effectively and quickly release a responsive, visually appealing email on a weekly basis.

Social media
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Many methods are used to drive people to the UR Now website. One of those methods is using Instagram stories to promote select articles to the university's 25.3k followers — a younger audience that is known to be less active on email. I designed a simple template that allows me to quickly provide consistent graphics to the social team for those posts.

Video
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Since brands that use video receive 41% more web traffic from search engines than ones that don't, creating videos for UR Now was a natural choice. To present the video branding concepts to the team, I created intro storyboards like the one below. The winning concept was then shared with the multimedia team for direction when they built the animation.

Process
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The middle section of the email is designed to have a modular section that is flexible to accommodate different layouts. To help illustrate this idea to stakeholders and give the editorial team a solid platform for their planning, I created various wireframes showing different options. I also created a paper mockup with actual cut-out content blocks, that could be physically moved and arranged to build an email, to drive the idea home in a tangible way.