The University of Oregon School of Law
From January 2015 to December 2016, I was Director of Marketing and Communications at the University of Oregon School of Law in January of 2015. I took the job for two reasons: first, it was in Oregon. I’d always dreamed of living in the West, and after a lifetime in the Mid-Atlantic region, this was a chance to make it happen. Second, it was a challenge: law schools across the nation have been going through a rough period. In the past few years, fewer students have enrolled in law school due to poor job prospects and the high cost. I wanted to see if I could make a difference for Oregon Law.
It was my responsibility here to develop the long-term marketing strategy for the school, short-term tactics to realize that strategy, and execute the production of all marketing media. Every day I worked with the school’s faculty and many programs and centers to create marketing that targeted their unique audiences and met their goals—but also fit into the brand of the school as a whole and the larger brand of the University of Oregon.
Lawyers aren’t known for being happy people. They tend to be regarded like firefighters—the people you call only after something bad has happened. But I noticed the students and faculty at Oregon Law were different—and wanted to capitalize on this.
So I developed the “lawPOSITIVE” phrase and brand campaign. lawPOSITIVE isn’t an aspiration, it’s who we are at Oregon Law. It embodies the idea that Oregon Law grads want to make the world a better place. They fight for the public good, and many accept lower-paying jobs with nonprofits because they believe in what those nonprofits do.
lawPOSITIVE resonated with prospective students and faculty alike. It stood in stark contrast to other law schools who are all about getting their grads
six-figure jobs with Big Law firms.
After persuading the school’s leadership on this evolution of the Oregon Law brand, I began to express it in as many ways possible, starting with the school’s viewbook—the primary print recruiting tool:
The viewbook was a compelling statement about the school’s brand and identity, and this one was a big success. Below is the 2016 viewbook, which combined information about the school with testimonials from students, alumni, and faculty.
Beyond managing the school’s brand, I created a lot of other media. Here’s a series of posters I created for display in glass cases near a main entrance:
Much of the work I did was in support of the school’s nationally-ranked environmental law program. Here is a 40-page newsletter I designed and produced (we did two of these a year, in the fall and spring):
Below is a series of posters I created for the school’s Undergraduate Legal Studies program. These were posted around the whole university campus to attract interest among undergraduates to this new program…
Below is a video I produced to promote the Undergraduate Legal Studies program. My goal was to make it short, punchy, and give it a bit of that gritty, cops-and-lawyers TV show vibe…
Videos don’t always have to be…well, video. I produced the video below entirely with existing photos and recorded interviews with faculty members. To give it more visual interest, I accented key words and phrases with animated text on-screen…
Throughout the year, the school produced several large events for students and alumni. I provided all the audiovisual support for these events, including advance promotion via marketing emails, developing online registration forms, creating large-scale environmental banners to hang around the building, and producing videos shown to large audiences at the events.
Below is a short tribute video to a very special Oregon Law alumni, Minoru Yasui. If you don’t know who he was, it’s worth watching. He was recently awarded (posthumously) the Presidential Medal of Freedom for his work against the persecution of Japanese Americans during World War II.
For all of these print and video media examples, I developed the concepts, did all the photography and videography, did the design and layout and video editing using the Adobe Creative Suite.
