At Ripon, we are “More. Together.” Or, at least that’s what our banners read. This weirdly punctuated saying has been the unofficial motto of Ripon College for ten plus years, almost as long as students have been mocking it. But this fall, we will have nothing to laugh at because Ripon College has a brand new motto. Or at least a new brand campaign called, “Life Well Lived.”
“Ripon’s brand is 164 years old. It is epitomized by small class sizes, close faculty-to-student relationships and a rigorous liberal arts and sciences curriculum. It isn’t going anywhere,” says Melissa Anderson, interim VP for advancement and executive director of marketing and communications. “‘Life Well Lived’ is an effort to make the Ripon brand visible, more meaningful and accessible for today’s generation of students.”
Branding campaigns are not new to higher education or to Ripon. Prior to “More. Together.” the college’s last campaign was, “Writing the Book on Liberal Arts Education.’” There was even a billboard on the highway with this tagline.
When Anderson was surveying students last year, she set out to discover Ripon’s brand truth, or when Ripon is at its best.“I wanted to know what was true about Ripon in the lives of its constituents and also what aspects of the overall Ripon experience were most meaningful, and why,” she adds.
Time and again, students talked about strong relationships with faculty, staff and fellow students, a desire for excellence, a penchant for discovery, love of alma mater, abundant leadership opportunities, etc. These sentiments were echoed in work done by the college’s strategic planning committees.
The campaign was created to recognize these big ideas as a set of easily identifiable icons – each representing an aspect of‘Life Well Lived.’ See below for these new icons.
“This is about connecting and identifying with the overall experience we provide,” Anderson says.
The campaign will continue thorughout the year and possibly into the next few years. For now, the brand campaign is being implemented across campus in the form of visual banners. Each banner will contain different aspects of the Ripon education reflected in imagery and symbolism.
Who knows, maybe you will find yourself up on one of the new banners, and then you will know that you are already living a ‘Life Well Lived.”
*Melissa Anderson is the current advisor to the College Days
