INSIGHTS: Maintaining a smarter, simpler website

Three tips for cleaning up a messy website

Working in industries like higher education, nonprofits, and health care, we see many large-scale websites that serve internal and external audiences. We also see a lot of duplicate content and general inefficiencies on these sites, usually stemming from years of updates by multiple teams or from contributors who needed something added in a pinch. These edits are typically made as temporary solutions that end up being less than temporary. 

In our latest article, we’ve provided three steps to “Marie Kondo” your website and make it more beneficial to your key audiences and more efficient overall — and worthy of top-of-page ranking.

CASE STUDY: Northern Michigan University

In the far reaches of Michigan’s Upper Peninsula, nestled beside the icy blue expanse of Lake Superior, sits Northern Michigan University. Despite offering an accessible, affordable education with solid academics and a breadth of opportunities, NMU struggled for recognition outside its home region. 

With goals of both expanding its reach and bolstering philanthropic support, the university engaged with Ologie to build a brand that would tell a unified and compelling story.

Throughout our research, an interesting concept came up again and again: a mindset called sisu. Borrowed from Finnish culture, the word describes a kind of stoic determination in the face of long winters. It’s what defines the people of the U.P. — and by extension, NMU students.

With that in mind, our strategy rested on NMU’s unique balance of two ideas: hard-won grit and boundless potential. From there, we built a creative platform around a single, memorable phrase: Always North.

“Always North” emerged as both a defining idea and a strategic shift. It reframed the university’s remote location not as a limitation, but as a metaphor for aspiration — always climbing, always reaching, always moving forward.

Visually, the brand honors the region through patterns created in consultation with a local Indigenous artist. Illustrations in the style of woodcuts evoke the beauty of the wilderness. The new graphic language feels academic and aspirational, able to shift easily from big and bold to sophisticated and elegant.

Ultimately, the brand platform unites advancement, marketing, and admissions around a single clear story — One rooted in who NMU is, and who it’s becoming.  

WHERE WE'LL BE: Digital Collegium Analytics & AI Summit

DIGITAL DOWNLOAD: Princeton University SPIA Case Study

Building beyond a legacy

Our latest case study covers our work with the Princeton School of Public and International Affairs, which partnered with Ologie to unite its diverse stakeholders around a renewed sense of purpose, to articulate the school’s distinct story, and to elevate its mission in a bold and meaningful way.

“Like the University as a whole, Princeton SPIA maintains a deeply held commitment to serving the public good. The language around ‘Pillars of Tomorrow’ eloquently articulates that the School’s academic character — its scholarship, its research, its teaching — exists not for its own sake, but in the service of a better, juster, safer world.”

Tom Durso, Director of Communications,

Princeton School of Public and International Affairs