Case Studies

A Marketing Roadmap Sequenced Around Impact

CEN had a long list of marketing goals and little capacity to deliver them, so we built a roadmap sequenced around impact, not size, starting with the levers that unblock everything else.

Re-Architecting a Website Without Rebuilding It

We rewrote CEN’s entire services canon and re-architected their website from the school’s point of view, without rebuilding it, turning eleven ungrouped services into five clear categories and the generic pages into role-based guides.

A Brand Manifesto, Filmed in Many Voices

As part of the brand relaunch we wrote a manifesto, a poetic call to arms that ties the school’s story, purpose, and values into one flag-in-the-ground moment. Then we made it the script for a film, with students, staff, and community members each reading a line.

One Connecting Thread Across a Brand Relaunch

Belmont’s vision and mission were locked and no longer quite relevant, and they were mid-rewrite on their values, so we leaned on purpose as a connecting thread through it all.

Students Behind the Camera for a Brand Launch

For the launch we did some participatory design: gave the kids disposable cameras to photograph the values in action, then built those photos back into the brand.

A Purpose Statement Built to Scale

Belmont’s purpose statement was written to scale. It expands up into a manifesto and shrinks down to two words, and it threw off whole messaging moves, “people the world needs” and “this is where it all begins”. A purpose statement that generates rather than restricts.

Planning a Brand Rollout, Not Just a Logo

The part it’s easy to forget to plan is the launch. For BCC’s big brand rollout we sat down and built it like a shopping list, phased and lean, working through the hard bits like uniform and bringing the community along so the change felt like a good-news story.

Auditing an Enrolment Experience Worth Being Known For

A large school with full classes and long waitlists asked a great question: What would it take to be known for the best enrolment experience in the city? An Enrolment Ecosystem Audit gave them the foundation to answer it.

Replacing Misconceptions with a School’s Real Story

A school in the ACT came to us feeling fuzzy about their marketing. The audit found the real problem: misconceptions were filling a story vacuum.

From a Virtual Tour Request to a Design Process

Orange Christian School’s executive team asked for a virtual tour. Instead of the usual static 360 images, we ran a tour design process and turned its output into a video script, delivering the tour video plus a header video and a bank of B-roll.

A Testimonial Ad Campaign in Seven Days

A late-year enrolment ad campaign with seven days to start and no capacity for a shoot, so we got the school’s own parents, staff, and students talking on camera, vertical, on a phone, and ran that as the creative.

A Marketing Plan for a Small School’s First Budget

A small Sydney school with its first-ever marketing budget and nobody whose job was marketing. We started with a one-day workshop, because I’d never recommend a plan without a deep conversation first, and what came out was a positioning the school already believed but had never put into words.

An Employee Value Proposition for Teacher Recruitment

MCCC asked for recruitment videos. We slowed it down, built an EVP around three real situations (relocators, new grads, locals), then followed three teachers through their day, Office-style, for four films and a photo suite that tell the truth about working there.

Prototyping a Prospectus Before Designing It

MCCC’s prospectus was storyboarded in the workshop as a low-fidelity prototype, mapped to the messaging strategy and the new website’s language, and built on the photography and graphic elements of the wider brand world.

A Bottom-Up Brand Strategy, Built from Workshops

A brand strategy built bottom-up: workshops with executives, students, and parents, ideas road-tested along the way, and messaging drawn straight from the school’s experience principles and signature offers.

Low-Cost, Big-Impact Website Re-skin

Namoi Valley couldn’t justify a website rebuild, so in a single day I re-skinned the existing site, new photography and tidied messaging, into line with the brand.

Orientation Booklets to Welcome Families with Care

Belmont’s orientation booklets for new Prep and Kindy families, designed to do two jobs at once, the practical and the emotional, so families felt prepared and cared for, not just handed a checklist.

Honouring Four Decades of Stories

A coffee-table book for Belmont’s 40th, gathering four decades of stories and photographs to honour the people who made the school, kept outside the brand on purpose so it felt like a treasured community artefact, not marketing.

A Situational Marketing Framework for a National Organisation

CEN’s marketing had become a pile of tasks built around their own services. Using situational marketing, we reframed everything around the moments their “champions” actually turn to them, giving a national body its first shared system for understanding its audiences, and a roadmap to act on it.

A Photoshoot Built Around the Heart of a School’s Story

For MCCC’s new brand and website, a full-day documentary photoshoot that skipped the staged classroom shots and went after the moments in between, kids at play, friendships, the funny laugh, to capture the real heart of the school.

Building a Messaging Strategy in a Single Workshop

NVCS needed clear messaging without the budget for a full brand process, so we stripped the work back to one three-hour workshop using the school character framework. The Local Heart, a complete messaging pyramid, and the birthplace of Bolsta’s School Archetypes.

Building a Clearer Enrolment Journey for Families and Referrers

A pro bono morning workshop with Kairos, using Bolsta’s six-step enrolment journey cards to give a fee-free, mission-driven college its first shared enrolment framework, and to shift the question from promoting the school to designing how families experience it.

Capturing a School’s Story Through a Brand Video

MCCC’s new brand manifesto became the script for its brand video, narrated by a student and filmed documentary-style, real life and small moments, giving the school an emotive anchor for the website launch.

A School’s First Professional Photoshoot

Namoi Valley’s first-ever professional photoshoot, one day moving through the school catching real moments, building a flexible, cohesive library that now anchors the website, prospectus, and enrolment comms.

Bringing a School’s Story to Life Through a Film-Style Photoshoot

Belmont’s purpose was shaping, so we shot the brand photography film-style, grain, movement, never quite crisp, nostalgic and imaginative at once, to leave parents room to imagine their own child.

Mapping a Growth-Ready Enrolment Journey

MCCC had grown fast and the unmapped “way we’ve always done things” was buckling, so across two workshops we mapped the whole enrolment journey for the first time, turning hidden friction into visible priorities and a foundation for everything that followed.

Designing a Parent-Centred Small Group Tour

MCCC moved from one-to-one tours to a designed small group format, mapped around what parents need to feel, know, and understand. It booked out in weeks, one family started early, and the admin load dropped.

Building a Future-Proof School Website

MCCC’s website came after the brand on purpose. A fully custom, lean WordPress build on a custom block library the school can edit visually, designed with a deliberate, refined simplicity that honours the school’s personality.

Aligning an Admissions Team Around One Big Challenge

TVCS’s marketing and admissions were working separately and families felt the inconsistency, so a Pulse Check and a three-hour clarity workshop got the whole team to one agreed focus: the school tour experience.

Capturing a Rural School’s Heart in a Prospectus

Namoi Valley’s audit showed families visiting on-site and leaving empty-handed, so we built a right-sized prospectus from real parent and staff interviews, storyboarded end to end, and gently evolved the identity around their long-standing logo.