The chicago mosaic school
An overview of work and results from my time as a social media marketing intern.
Chicago, IL – Sept. 2024 to Jun. 2025
Impact
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➤ The Organization
Founded in 2005, The Chicago Mosaic School (CMS) is a non-profit art space dedicated to fostering personal and community transformation with access to mosaic education, exhibition, and collaborative engagement through outreach and public projects.
Today, CMS offers over 150 classes and workshops a year to thousands of students. The school also preserves and promotes mosaic art through school programs, community partnerships, teacher training programs, and creating sustainable mosaic art for public or commercial spaces. CMS has grown from a passionate vision into an internationally recognized, award-winning center for mosaic art education.
➤ Objectives
• CMS leadership wanted a stronger and more cohesive social media presence to see an increase in reach and engagement – with the hope of boosting course enrollment and event attendance.
• Leadership also emphasized that they wanted to highlight that CMS is “more than just school” but rather a supportive community arts space that encourages connection and personal growth.
➤ Challenges
• As a small (but mighty!) non-profit, The Chicago Mosaic School’s social media goals had to be achieved 100% organically.
• The school’s branding needed to maintain a balance between being perceived as fun and welcoming to beginners and casual hobbyists, while also appealing to professional, contemporary mosaic artists.
➤ Brand Development
Branding
First, I developed a cohesive brand aesthetic guide that aligned with CMS’ objective to be both welcoming and artistically sophisticated. From color palette, fonts, content, copy, every piece was carefully curated to align with CMS’ unique brand.
To achieve this, I conducted a thorough analysis of CMS’s brand personality and its local competitors. I created a perceptual map to help myself and CMS leadership visualize where the brand was situated. This audit allowed me to identify areas where CMS could differentiate itself and develop strategies to help the brand evolve and meet its objectives.
Copy
CMS values authentic brand voice. In this role, I strongly avoided AI-copy, which can feel inauthentic, overdone, and overall weaken the relationship between the brand and community.
➤ Content Strategy
Instagram and Facebook are CMS’ chosen social media platforms.
Content posted falls into three main categories. Scheduling a balance between these three content categories helps CMS achieve its objectives and maintain cohesive branding.
Promotional
• Call to action content is utilized to boost workshop enrollment, fundraise, or advertise gallery and community collaboration events.
Education
• Educational content highlights historic mosaics or educates followers of mosaic best practice.
Community Building
• Community is very important to CMS and this content helps promote these values to the public. This content includes CMS’ public large scale installations, the Artist in Residency program, instructors and students, and even studio pets!
➤ Measuring Success
My success in this role is measured both qualitatively and quantitively.
• KPI’s analyzed include reach, engagement, and follows.
• Fundraising goals, workshop enrollment, and link clicks are also observed.
• CMS leadership has been satisfied with my branding work and asked me to extend my 3-month internship indefinitely. I was also asked to join CMS’ Strategic Visioning team.
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Content Creation
A promotional social media graphic / poster developed for the Chicago Mosaic School’s first international mosaic symposium.
The intersectional design features mosaic artwork created by both local Chicago mosaic artists and CMS’ visiting artists from around the world in a variety of artistic forms that pay homage to the ancient traditional form and modern contemporary mosaic expression.
Designed in collaboration with CMS’ Community Liaison, Sarah Lewis.
Promotional content example, highlighting an International Visiting Artist mosaic workshop.
This design aligns with brand objectives to feel “fresh, light, modern, and welcoming,” but also “sophisticated and professional.”
The typography itself is a blend of sleek and classic fonts. The photo shows the maestro supporting his student.
Caption copy notes that Maestro Verdiano is a valued community member returning to the studio.
It emphasizes the level of attention, care, and support students will receive in the course – whatever their skill level may be.
However, it also highlights the depth of the Maestro’s expertise in the contemporary mosaic art scene, making this opportunity appealing to serious, professional mosaic artists as well.
Fundraising
A series of social media graphics developed for The Chicago Mosaic School’s 2024 Giving Tuesday campaign.
Campaign Messaging
“Your contribution will help us open 6+ exhibitions annually, offer financial aid to students who need it, and bring 7 visiting artists in the coming year. Please remember – a gift of any size makes a difference. Just as a mosaic is built with pieces large and small, CMS is built on the support of every member of our community, no matter the size of their contribution.”
Target Audience
This campaign sought to emphasize the sense of community that CMS provides. The target audience was anyone who has felt positively impacted by the school’s community and arts education. Messaging plays with the imagery of mosaic art.
Result
This campaign successfully raised over $20,000, surpassing the set goal of $5,000.
Meg Lloyd-Boonstra 