A limitless brand for limitless girls. Archer’s rebrand carved them a timeless, untouchable space in the crowded, heritage-coded Los Angeles private school scene. It connects their uniquely impactful educational practices and principles to a more dynamic definition of success for students and parents—all while being intentionally pro-girl without being anti-anything. We crafted a sharp and resonant positioning and voice for Archer with design and copywriting that can captivate and rally all girls and girl-supporters. Now Archer is readier than ever to be a contributor to global conversations about the education, wellbeing, and ambitions of girls and women.

Only to families in Los Angeles, CA who are buying a private school education for their daughters between the ages of 10 – 18 years old.

While every school promises success for students and to parents, the priciest elite private U.S. institutions in Archer’s orbit have extra pressure to prove real return on investment. Why extra? Measurements and definitions of success are rapidly changing—recent upheavals of standardized tests and affirmative action are impacting college admissions processes; university and private school costs are soaring; self-made entrepreneurs and millionaires with little-to-no college education raise provocative questions about how money should be spent to launch ambitious young people towards success. All this means more scrutiny and uncertainty for parents about promising paths for their children, and more necessity for schools to clarify their value.

Also relevant to Archer, US teen girls are struggling with mental health and wellbeing at double the rate of boys, with 57% feeling persistently sad or hopeless—a nearly 60% increase in ten years (CDC, 2023). In contrast, there’s more opportunity and support for women’s ambitions: higher than ever C-suite representation (McKinsey, 2023), more pay equity transparency, improved family leave, and record-breaking achievements by female artists and entrepreneurs. Since teen girls will soon face life’s opportunities and asks as women, it’s imperative that educational environments do their part in improving hopefulness alongside achievement.

Approaching its 30th anniversary, Archer needed a brand revolution to clarify its lasting impact on girls and the world. Our work freed Archer from reliance on traditional metrics alone to dictate success by codifying their unique, timeless antidote of hope for girls and parents: an individualized, joyful, limitless aegis for ambition.

For decades Archer has walked the walk as a category of one—an intentional, iterative educational space for girls unlocking effective strategies for nurturing joy-fueled ambition. With deep understanding of the unique limits and demands placed on girls and women, it balances the best of traditional schooling with emerging research-based approaches to equip girls with the fearlessness, compassion, and resilience they need to move through limits they face while pursuing their individual brilliance. Archer wanted its brand to push limits too, to distinguish it from staid Los Angeles private schools, and give global reach to their uniquely impactful approach.

For under $300k we delivered a full rebrand—positioning, purpose, values, personality, tone-of-voice, messaging, tagline, headlines—and design system was needed to make the core truths of this 500-student, all-girls, Los Angeles school entirely ownable and universally relatable so Archer could extend their antidote of hope to girls and women worldwide.

Limitless education, limitless girls. As the U.S. wrestles with how to bring joy and hopefulness back to girls, the role of educational environments and the adults within them cannot be overlooked. It is perfect timing for Archer’s to expand its uniquely impactful approach far beyond its gates. Archer equips girls with the fearlessness, compassion, joy, and resilience they need to pursue their brilliance, and we built an equally limitless, timely, and emboldening brand. We positioned the brand distinctly in a “classical-modern” sweet spot that evokes their balance of traditional schooling with emerging research-based methods—the strategy and identity express its signature principles and practices in ways that captivate, galvanize, and positively impact any girl or girl-supporter. This intentional, iterative brand brilliantly reflects the nature of Archer’s aegis, all in service of the rising and thriving of girls and women living without limits.

The design expresses Archer’s classical/modern balancing act, and the vibrant, sharp, unstoppable “glow” of its students while hacking the tricky task of being fresh and futureproof in a category with entrenched historical codes signalling access to success. First, you see a classic, prestigious school—Evergreen and Stone colors, stone-carved wordmark, classically drawn icons. From Archer’s founding story, Artemis (Greek archer and protector of girls) takes the helm of the visual identity, aiming at a star encouraging every girl to aim at one of her own. Then, a fresh spin on school—California colors pop; modern turns-of-phrase provoke; the dynamic logo and modern iconography nod to Archer’s iterative approach. And the “HER” hidden in ARCHER is now a platform for messages that embolden all girls and women. The best of classical education made modern, timely, and compelling with its emerging methods and now a limitless brand.

Since October, success has rippled for Archer. The rebrand graced billboards in Los Angeles & Times Square garnering 2,209,579 impressions, 123% increase in Google searches, 45% increase in web sessions, and reached 16,000+ non-follower accounts. The billboards inspired a fiery thought-piece from a prominent LA blogger that began a dialogue about girls’ education and the future of private schools. At Archer, every spring admissions event was max capacity and enrollment rates of accepted students increased. The girls are embracing the intentionally flexible identity—they designed and sold-out 1,000s of units of merch, use the values, purpose, and tagline as affirmations, and made their new headline “study history, then make it” into a public content series about historically impactful women. Archer is collaborating with their now limitless brand, using it to export their unique impact on girls in ways that can inspire and change the broader world for all girls.