Goldsmiths University of London
Giving a world-famous education powerhouse a powerful voice.
Goldsmiths is a true melting pot, offering the widest imaginable range of courses and study specialisms, all from its compact London campus. So we paced this idea at the very heart of our brand campaign.
Sector
Education
What we did
Design Development
- Creative concepts
- Messaging and tone of voice
- Brand expression
- Campaign communications
- Campaign identity
- Content creation
- Print design
- Art direction
- Exhibition design and interpretation
Delivery
- Brand toolkits
- Tone of voice guidelines
- Brand activation
- Motion design and video
Context
Goldsmiths, University of London is a world leader in new knowledge, a place where creative minds can thrive and ideas can grow. Long regarded as a creative powerhouse with a rich academic heritage, its areas of specialism now span the arts, humanities, social sciences, computing, business and management. Goldsmiths is determined to attract the best, brightest and bravest students: our task was to create a recruitment campaign identity to help the university to achieve this ambition over the next three years.
Solution
Working with regular writing partner Kate Van der Borgh, our starting point was to craft a compelling and flexible approach to copy: our One Goldsmiths concept placed eclecticism, individuality and diversity at the heart of the solution. With a similarly eclectic approach to typography, we brought this melting pot of disciplines, specialisms and subjects to life. Photographer John Wildgoose then delivered a suite of reportage photographs as well as 4k video, all shot on the Goldsmiths campus. Animation partners Buff Motion edited and graded the broadcast ad we created, and exhibition build specialists Standard 8 built an amazing, bespoke exhibition kit.
It’s been a real pleasure working with the team at Baxter & Bailey. We came to them with an ambitious brief that they’ve distilled into a striking, powerful campaign that authentically gets to the heart of what makes Goldsmiths such an exciting and inclusive place to study.
Baxter & Bailey have been simply brilliant to work with: insightful, agile and almost an extension of our own team. The Goldsmiths brand is a powerful and complex one, with a diverse and busy visual language. Baxter & Bailey nailed the brief with some exceptionally restrained, impactful, and beautifully worked graphic and narrative styles which have developed into a stunning campaign.
Impact
Initially designed as a three year campaign, the One Goldsmiths campaign ultimately ran for six years. The campaign guidelines and toolkit we delivered allowed the in-house team to develop and evolve the campaign as it ran, ensuring it remained fresh, relevant and engaging (and picking up a WhatUni Campaign of the Year award along the way).
million web interactions in the first year.
140%increase in Open Day CRM email click-through rates.
2000%increase in conversions.
92%reduction in cost per conversion.
Awards
Special Thanks
Thank you to David, Jennifer, Blair and the rest of the Goldsmiths marketing and recruitment teams for allowing us to push, pull, stretch and challenge the brand identity to make something memorable, stand-out and singular. And a special thanks to our regular photographic wingman John Wildgoose, who contributed superb stills and magical motion.