Out of all of my projects, I am most proud of this one.
Client: Calling All Optimists for Graduate Management Admission Council
Agency: Bluetext
Role: Creative Direction, UX, and Video Producer
Year: 2017 & 2020
Calling All Optimists was originally just a single-page website, with a message, some colors, and a textual ‘logo’. However, as the graduate management education industry declined, this top-funnel Calling All Optimists (CAO) campaign was needed more than ever.
Through collaborative field studies and research, we engineered a unique digital experience in the form of a personalized 4-question quiz. The quiz seamlessly guided the user to customized messaging and content based on their answers, while simultaneously gathering actionable user-insight which integrated directly into the council’s marketing automation platform. Not only did this redesign improve the campaign’s functionality and awareness – it created a holistic brand ecosystem that drove both the user and the client to their desired goal.
Award-Winning Optimism
In October of 2020, Calling All Optimists site and branding was voted to win Best UI Design, Best UX Design and Best Innovation, by CSS Design Awards.
Mega-Fun Microsite
We upgraded callingalloptistists.com into a full website, animating an interactive digital experience behind a collection of tools, resources, and inspiration to help career seekers find their best next step. With multiple dynamic personalized quizzes and scalable interactive component designs, we built Calling All Optimists from a campaign landing page to a dependable digital branch of the council’s global sales funnel.
We drove a positive boost in the non-profit’s web tool to an increase of 400k+ microsite visitors, 50k+ actions taken on the site, and 153% website clicks than the previous website. Not only did our redesign improve the campaign’s functionality and awareness – it created a holistic brand ecosystem that drove both the user and the client to their desired goal.
We wanted a brand that could play…
A Brand Identity on a Mission
Since the microsite was getting so much attention, the council decided it was time to properly invest in the campaign. In 2020, we pioneered the 2017 aesthetic into a true corporate visual identity that could live alongside the most widely used exam for MBA admissions, the exam.
Calling All Optimists was born, complete with its own unique color palette, animation style, and graphic elements.
Inspired by Washington D.C.’s brutalist architecture, we created a CVI nicknamed “Optimistic Bauhaus”. It charmed our target Gen Z audience, with text-forward components and animated “C”, “A”, and “O” blocks. Plus, Bluetext designed a new optimistic color, “Reina Blue”, which gives even the brand’s “Sunflower Yellow” a run for its money. We wanted a brand that could play, so the brand elements really came alive while designing the energetic and interactive UI on the site.
As the brand was still a campaign at its core, the council needed it to co-brand with various partners’ logos, like Made In Italy, Black Lives Matter, or even the (PRODUCT)RED endeavor.
We decided to put that actionable name to use, making #callingalloptimists into a brand signal that could be dropped into any PR global initiative and drive both awareness and action.
A brand that did what it needed to do!
With a true corporate visual identity ready for the global campaign, they could finally tell the top-funnel story it needed to tell.
