Mentorship is key to career success. Alumni UMinho recognising this value created two mentoring programs for the students of the University of Minho. “Tutorias por Pares” joins a freshman and a second-year student where the latter is to help the young one best integrate into the academic environment. The program Mentorias UMinho pairs a last-year student with an alumnus to give the future graduate the best shot at a successful career kick-off.
For the promotional campaign, we’ve come up with the tree/root metaphor to visualise the relation created in the program. It represents the way the parts above and below the ground differ in nature, have specific roles, but depend on each other and together are one organism.
The root is what grounds the plant body, gives it support, gathers and stores the water and nutrients, and because it lives underground, it’s invisible to us—almost like a mentor who is the support to the growing protégé. The crown is the vital, green part assimilating solar energy and CO₂—the visibly growing section, the protégé.
Except that in the poster the root is also a tree, but an older one. It suggests that the mentor–protégé relationship is a symbiosis where both parts gain and grow as a result.
The composition consisting of two fields of contrasting colour that complete each other enforces the message. The typography is arranged in the form of a frame, which directs the attention into the centre—the relationship.
The brochure’s custom cut further explores the concept of two individual parts, where the message underneath each part of the “window” is directed to either mentor (bottom) or protégé (top).
