The University of Baltimore
Doing Different Deliberately
CMS
Modern Campus
Services
Strategy, UX, Design, Content, Analytics, Governance, Intranet
Launched
2025
The Challenge
New Century.
Same University.
New Approach.
At a time when many schools might be marketing improvements in rankings and fancy new facilities, the University of Baltimore was leaning into its 100-year history as it neared its centennial celebration.
With a recent brand refresh that hadn’t yet been reflected on their site, the UBalt team needed to market the core tenets of what made them “different by design” — one part of their brand itself. An audience of largely working adults. A record of social mobility for its student body. And a pillar in the proud city of Baltimore, offering one of two public law schools in the state of Maryland.
In a competitive higher ed landscape, how could they create a new university website design that communicated all of that while staying true to themselves? That’s what we set out to accomplish.
New Design. Big Numbers.
Our Approach
Tapping into What's Different
Discovery revealed a rich well of creative content for our team. By leveraging the University of Baltimore’s prior brand work and speaking directly with students and stakeholders, we soon found a unique togetherness in the UBalt community, a culture that lifted up itself and others — and with it, the city of Baltimore.
This fueled a creative strategy that marketed UBalt as “Different by Design.” A visual website design tapestry highlights bold colors and fonts, showcases Baltimore in dramatic effects, and puts student stories at the front of the experience.
We also supported the website team to make sure their site remained focused, had internal support, and drove engagement post-launch. A town hall helped socialize the team’s approach and answer any questions from stakeholders throughout the university. Governance provided long-term guardrails for content users and editors. And keyword research and an analytics & SEO dashboard set the team up to monitor progress and adjust accordingly post-launch.
In the News
SENSE OF PLACE
Reflecting Baltimore
A microsite for the centennial — UBalt 100 — allowed the team to rally around a centennial campaign. And in keeping with UBalt’s pledge to serve its city, we collaborated with a local Minority Business Enterprise (MBE) to rewrite 90 of its program pages.
These pages reflect the richly diverse community, allowing users to see versions of themselves at UBalt while putting a face on the degrees the school offers.
UBalt is diverse people coming together to work hard, progress, and make a difference.
INTRANET
For the (Current) Community
An external-facing university website design wasn’t the only goal of the project. The UBalt team had a portal for their current community — existing students, faculty, and staff — that was built on a sunsetting product.
We redesigned the intranet to:
- Create a more user-focused, streamlined product
- Provide information and content critical to the user to the forefront
- Create a consistent, branded experience between the public website and the portal
- Meet accessibility requirements
We would love to hear from you
Want to learn more about this project or engage in a conversation about challenges at your institution?