XQ Institute

Let’s Rethink High School

XQ Institute launched in 2015 with a $50 million investment from Laurene Powell Jobs’ Emerson Collective, the leading force in rethinking high school education. With a focus on innovation and inspiration, XQ is now entering a new chapter, emphasizing scaling and maturity for growth. In collaboration with Athletics, XQ underwent a holistic brand transformation, resulting in all new communications materials and xqsuperschool.org—a premier platform driving insights, partnerships, and community engagement.

Our Role:

Strategy

Art Direction

Brand Identity

Brand Writing

Concept Development

Motion Graphics

UI / UX Design

Design and Development

Experience Design

Collaborators:

XWP, Displaay

The future starts today

XQ’s Institute’s rebrand represents the beginning of the next chapter for the organization as XQ expands the depth and breadth of its initiatives with educators, policymakers, community members and students to transform high school education.

XQ’s logo was designed to embody a future that is smart, streamlined, and mature. It is built from precise geometry that allows the X to be rotated to form a ‘plus’ sign; a symbol for XQ’s collaborative spirit and positive outlook.

Collaboration and partnership

The XQ Team and Athletics worked together to develop xqsuperschool.org, a best in class digital platform powering insights, partnerships, and community to help students, educators, policymakers, families and neighbors transform the American high school experience together.

Athletics worked with the type foundry Displaay to develop a custom XQ version of their typeface Teodor Light that provides alternate hand drawn characters allowing XQ to build unexpected moments into primary headlines in print and digital.

1/5

Real students. Real transformation.

XQ photography strives to tell a holistic story of learning by capturing authentic high school moments, both large and small, to portray a dynamic picture of the XQ experience.

Events and activations, like XQ’s summit with Carnegie Foundation for the Advancement of Teaching, provide XQ with the opportunity to highlight their long term partnerships dedicated to improvement in education.

1/3

The ability to tell engaging stories optimized for mobile reading is central to XQ's site experience. A flexible suite of content modules allows internal XQ staff to easily publish short, medium and long form content.

XQ in a Box

XQ’s brand system has been optimized to work in physical, digital and experiential contexts. XQ’s roadmap to digital transformation, XQ in a Box, is both a physical toolkit sent to high schools as well as a digital platform.

“A school is not a good school unless it’s good for all the kids in it. We want to be able to shine a bright spotlight on the things that work.”
Russlynn Ali, Co-founder and CEO, XQ Institute

Infectious Action

A versatile suite of visual tools help XQ Instigate excitement around mutual action that comes by way of influencing, sharing, visualizing and making dynamic the diversity of people, opinions, and ideas at play in the world of XQ.

1/2