Western Carolina University
Blazing a New Trail
CMS
Modern Campus
Services
Strategy, UX, Design, Content, SEO, Governance
Launched
2025
THE CHALLENGE
Express Brand in a Brand New Way
Western Carolina University sits on 600 acres in the stunning Blue Ridge Mountains of North Carolina. The problem? The beauty and atmosphere of what it felt like to be on campus — and the people who come there — was missing from the website.
With more than 3,500 pages, 230 content editors, and an overly academic reading level, the existing site had become what happens at many institutions: a “junk drawer.” And the homepage spoke more to the current community than to the prospective students the university needed to attract.
Nonetheless, the WCU team had strong brand pillars to start from. This ignited our team creatively, while we supported WCU in reimagining the user experience. Our work together included:
Our work together didn’t just create excitement. It produced results.
Results Since Launch
BRAND
What Makes Western, Western?
Discovery was the foundation. Our robust discovery process surfaced five story pillars that we leaned into, including:
- The mountain setting as a home base for exploration
- A vibrant, tight-knit campus culture
- Deep roots in Southern Appalachia and the Eastern Band of the Cherokee Indians
- Hands-on learning with personal mentorship from faculty
- An affordable education with outsized career impact.
On the redesigned homepage, the story comes to life through student profiles, each paired with looping video that lets prospective students see themselves at WCU before they ever set foot on campus. The trail-themed user experience and visual design intentionally leads readers down a path to align with the brand.
For a lot of students we’re not their first choice — until they visit.
CONTENT
Cleaning Up. Moving Ahead.
Thousands of outdated, difficult-to-read pages needed streamlining and re-framing to reflect audience need.
Our content team re-wrote 90+ program pages to highlight outcomes, tell individual stories, and show what makes WCU unique: helping prospective students explore their academic options in a unique environment where they can envision their future.
SENSE OF PLACE
Bringing the Mountains to the Screen
WCU’s location in western North Carolina is its single greatest recruiting asset. But the previous site buried it.
Our design team created a visual language rooted in the landscape. Full-bleed photography and video bring the mountains, the campus, and the surrounding community to the forefront.
The overall design shows students that WCU isn’t isolated by its mountain setting. It’s empowered by it.
There’s so much to do here. We have a national park on our doorstep.
GOVERNANCE
Built to Last
A beautiful launch means little if a site can’t be maintained. WCU’s previous experience — 238 editors routing changes through a single web team member — was unsustainable and had contributed to the content sprawl that prompted the redesign in the first place.
We delivered a governance framework designed to protect the investment, including:
- Clear editorial roles and workflows
- Content standards that reduced reliance on any single gatekeeper
- A component-driven design system in Modern Campus that gives editors flexibility within guardrails.
The goal: empower teams across campus to keep their content current without compromising brand consistency or site quality.
We would love to hear from you
Want to learn more about this project or engage in a conversation about challenges at your institution?