Give rise to limitless girls. This is the next era Brand Promise of Archer School for Girls—a 500-student all-girls school in Los Angeles, CA determined to enrich and amplify the national conversation about girl wellbeing and success. For decades, Archer has walked its unique walk as an intentional, iterative educational space for girls, unlocking effective strategies for nurturing joy-fueled ambition. Now, with the U.S. facing unprecedented levels of teen-girl sadness, hopelessness, and suicidal thinking, Archer’s strategies offer crucial solutions.

The challenge was a rebrand that would accelerate rising limitlessness for girls within and beyond Archer’s aegis without giving rise to further animosity towards girls and all-girls schools. From strategy to design to production, the rebrand hacks the tricky task of being fresh and futureproof in a crowded category with strong heritage-coded signals for “access to success” while threading the age-old misogynistic needle of being pro-girl without being anti-anything.

U.S. teen girls struggle with mental health and wellbeing at double the rate of boys, with 57% feeling persistently sad or hopeless—a nearly 60% increase in 10-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 demands as women, it’s imperative that educational environments like Archer School for Girls do their part in improving hopefulness alongside achievement.

And, 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; 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 U.S. parents about promising paths for their children, and more necessity for schools to clarify their value.

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.

Archer School for Girls perpetually observes and interrogates the world to understand the limits and demands facing girls and women. It merges cultural insight with the best of traditional schooling and emerging research, iterating to equip each girl with the fearlessness, compassion, and resilience needed to overcome such limits.

Archer needed a brand that could break through biases against all-girls education so it can reach more girls and girl-supporters with its uniquely impactful perspectives and practices. Archer deliberately defines and measures progress for all its values—ones like, “Take Back the Mirror” and “Explore your Edges” reclaim girl-harmful ideas of perfectionism and carefulness, giving girls, families, and the community fresh, slightly feisty, unforgettable, and constructive feminist fuel.

Our full rebrand—positioning, purpose, values, personality, tone-of-voice, messaging, tagline, headlines—and design system made Archer’s invaluable truths entirely ownable and universally relatable, extending their antidote of hope to girls and women worldwide.

In 2023, girlhood was all. Alongside feminine cultural phenomena like “girl dinner” and Taylor Swift’s “The Eras Tour” the Barbie movie sparked global celebrations of the joys and wonders of being a girl. Barbie also surfaced a poignant, less beautiful, reality with America Ferrera’s monologue about the inescapable balancing act women manage in the quest for success and equanimity. In the real world, this is just one systemic cycle Archer targets with an all-girls education that inoculates students against the chilly climate of male-biased environments that feed the cycle.

Even though girls-schools have always been unsung heroes of girl greatness, in recent years, they’ve battled misconceptions that school inherently creates an equal playing field for boys and girls, and sexist stereotypes about all-girl environments, which make many parents unsure about all-girls education improving their daughters’ lives. Unlike its peers, Archer now has a brand that presents the compelling, joyful, and advantageous nature of its all-girls aegis; pierces the anti-all-girls mesmerism with the bold promise and evidence of a limitless education for limitless girls; and gives the world a fresh, disarming version of feminism that countless girls and girl-supporters can galvanize around to help overturn the exact challenge Ferrera described.

Limitless education, limitless girls. As the U.S. wrestles with how to bring joy and hopefulness back to girls, the role and influence of educational environments cannot be underestimated. Perfect timing for Archer School for Girls to expand access far beyond its gates to its joy-centric values and approach to female ambition and achievement. Archer equips girls with the fearlessness, compassion, and resilience they need to pursue their brilliance, and we built an equally limitless, timely, and emboldening brand. We positioned Archer distinctly in a “classical-modern” sweet spot that signals to parents the school’s unique 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 and girl-supporters. This intentional, iterative brand brilliantly reflects the nature of Archer’s aegis, all in service of a world full of girls and women living without limits.

Our team conducted in-depth category and culture research; ethnographic groups with Archer students of all ages, teachers, board members, and faculty; spent time at Archer in and beyond classrooms; and, most importantly, engaged with current and prospective parents about truths and challenges of education, Archer, and parenthood.

This revealed the ultimate driving factor for school selection: giving kids a better chance at success. While many elite schools attract parents who believe their path to success will be the same for their children, an emerging subset of parents are open-minded about approaches that are tailored to demands of modern contexts and culture, especially for girls. With this insight in hand, we clarified that Archer cannot be for every kind of family and crafted a strategy emphasizing how Archer balances the best of classical education with emerging research-based approaches to offer girls a life-lasting edge and experience of joyful ambition and success.

The design expresses Archer’s classical/modern balancing act and the vibrant, sharp, unstoppable “glow” of its students, teachers, and leaders, 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 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 girl-supporters. The best of classical education made modern, timely, and compelling with its emerging methods and a now limitless, galvanizing 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 one 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.

Archer does everything to maximize the potential for joyful realization of the varied, invaluable ambitions of girls. In part, this involves doing everything possible inside its gates for students; another part is addressing entrenched systemic limitations for girls and women beyond its gates, which benefits the world and decreases friction for students’ success after Archer.

To accomplish broader reach, Archer has leveraged its well-connected school community to grow the impact and reach of its bold, impactful point-of-view and proven practices, including partners like Teen Vogue, Girlboss, and Dyson. Now, armed with a more dynamic, contemporary, resonant identity that can sit strongly alongside bigger brands, Archer is developing a partnership strategy rooted in its refined brand values. Each value will be paired with a measurable needle to move for girls and assigned strategic brand partners to scale each impact effort to girls and girl-supporters globally.