ALX Beyond

Bringing Alexandria’s leading Expanded Learning connector to life.

Objective:

After years in development, and with the joint cooperation of schools, expanded learning programs, private funders, and more – the city of Alexandria’s newest expanded learning hub was finally coming. But bringing this new connecting point to life meant developing a name, messaging, and brand that could unite providers, educators, parents, students, and donors.

Strategy:

When they arrived at Mekanic, ALX Beyond had already chosen a name, though it wasn’t ALX Beyond. In the course of our work with them, we developed a new name – ALX Beyond, that captured both the locality of their organization (ALX being a common shorthand for Alexandria) and the aspirational element of the brand. We next worked to define ALX Beyond’s audiences, helping to prioritize students and families first, and then expanded learning providers and donors. Determining the hierarchy of these audiences allowed us to focus on developing messaging that was both aspirational and direct, targeted at the audiences who needed ALX Beyond’s primary offerings.

Tactics:

Along with naming and messaging, we began to develop a brand design from scratch. We developed concepts that showcased the intersection of ALX Beyond’s offerings and audiences. Among those elements we needed to highlight Youth, Education, Access, Aspiration, Learning, Limitless Potential, Creativity, and more. Like the messaging we developed, we eventually settled on a design that was light, versatile, and joy-forward. We chose the “Bee” logo for a number of reasons – primarily the associations of how bees work in collaboration for the benefit of their community, their long-standing relationship with education imagery, and the “Be” in “Beyond”.

Outcome:

The new ALX Beyond brand and website were launched in the summer of 2024 to an incredibly warm reception from ALX Beyond’s staff and audiences. The custom-made expanded learning provider Finder was an integral part of the success of the launch, and continues to help parents and students connect to out of school time programs in and around Alexandria.