Fired Up program
website + brand design
The Fired Up Program at CU-Boulder
Fired Up is an immersive, field research experience that helps incoming graduate students build skills, find community, and discover large-scale research ideas in the summer before graduate school. The program was developed by faculty in the Ecology and Evolutionary Biology Department at the University of Colorado at Boulder to build a more welcoming and inclusive experience for incoming graduate students.
We collaborated with the Fired Up team to design a new brand and website for the FiredUp program, to help them attract diverse applicants, provide inspiration for graduate school, and answer key questions that applicants from disadvantaged backgrounds might ask.
Our goal was to showcase Fired Up’s commitment to inclusivity, transparency, and big-picture science.
When the program’s PI, Dr. Valerie McKenzie, first approached us about the project, she explained:
“We wanted to build a fresh and exciting new website to attract students to apply to our newly re-furbished graduate program. We wanted it to be inspiring, educational, packed with info but inviting. ”
We worked with Val on a new brand and website for Fired Up that embraced the warm and welcoming vibe of the program and celebrated their commitment to inclusivity. We wanted the brand to be visually compelling and to highlight their connection to Colorado’s alpine ecosystems (where the program takes place). As Val explains,
“Working on science projects sometimes can be a slog, but working with Impact Media Lab reinvigorated my excitement about the project we are doing. I feel energized and inspired because I can visually see the ideas come to life in the beautiful work they have created. I am so excited to get it out there and share it.”
Dive in to see the site and brand in action!
home page
Program curriculum
THE BRAND
warm, empowering, adventurous
We wanted a brand that reinforced the warm and welcoming approach of the Fired Up program and celebrated their connection to science in mountain ecosystems. The biggest inspiration for the brand was their commitment to inclusivity and a better future in science, which we highlighted with a warm, sunrise-inspired palette. For this project, we created a logo series to help capture what we love about this bold initiative in graduate education.
Logo series
The Fired Up program’s logo is clean and colorful, inspired by community, inclusivity, and the power of a mountain sunrise. We developed the tagline - learn, connect, empower - to showcase the core goals of the program.
