By Laurie Marshall / Photos by Russell Cothren
Growing up in Fort Smith and traveling across Arkansas, Sophia Underwood (B.A., marketing, magna cum laude, ’24) often noticed buildings in small towns that had fallen into disrepair, stripped of their former character. She wondered what it would take to restore them, a question that initially led her to study architecture. While that interest remains, her focus has since broadened from restoring individual buildings to reimagining the identity and branding of entire towns.
Underwood was initially drawn to architecture as a career that would allow her to combine her creativity with a strong desire to help solve problems for people. For this reason, she was especially interested in the early stages of the design process, which involves studying how communities use space and interact with their environment. But it was through her honors research that her perspective began to shift. Underwood realized she was just as intrigued by the stories spaces tell as she was by their physical structure. That insight prompted her to change her major to marketing, where she could better explore the role of narrative, identity and visual communication in shaping community life.
“I loved that architecture allowed me the ability to design and create for people,” Underwood explained. “But over time I found myself gravitating towards the communication and storytelling part of the work, what I consider to be the branding of spaces.”
Underwood’s mentor, Molly Rapert, associate professor of marketing and director of the Center for Teaching Effectiveness, believes the honors thesis process is not only a valuable learning experience but also a unique opportunity to merge research interests into something applicable to a future career.
“Sophia has always had a love for architecture and design and a heart for serving others,” Rapert said. “The opportunity to bridge these worlds was made possible through the honors thesis: branding, sense of place, customer-centricity, and the role of small towns in America.”
After changing her major to marketing in her junior year, Underwood recognized how design theories she learned in architecture labs that considered how a built space fits into its environment could extend beyond the walls of a building. She was intrigued by the similarity between marketing and architecture concepts and began to think about how architecture could play a role in shaping the broader identity of urban spaces, where design and marketing intersect to craft a city’s unique brand and character.
“Both commercial brands and architecture help shape culture by forming people’s hopes about themselves,” Underwood said. “They prompt the recall of memories and inspire new desires. Given that buildings and brands can both be unique identifiers, I wanted to explore how they can be used together in a real-world application to impact something in need of an identity revival: small towns.”
Underwood found alignment between her dual research interests through placemaking, an urban design concept originating in the 1960s that utilizes a collective vision created by a variety of stakeholders. It collects input from community members when planning urban environments and elevates their wishes to be equal to the needs of business and infrastructure.
“More than just promoting better urban design, placemaking facilitates creative patterns of use, paying particular attention to the physical, cultural and social identities that define a place and support its ongoing evolution,” according to the Project for Public Spaces, a nonprofit aimed at creating community-powered spaces.
For her honors thesis, Underwood focused her research on Eureka Springs, a town of about 2,100 people located an hour east of Fayetteville. Despite its small size, Eureka Springs has cultivated a distinctive identity that resonates beyond Arkansas, making it a natural choice for her project. She crafted a series of questions and conducted interviews with residents and business owners to uncover how they perceive their town’s brand and what makes it unique.
Rapert connected Underwood with a former student, Amanda Roberts, who now works as the senior director of digital for Sam’s Club. Roberts introduced Underwood to people in Eureka Springs who could lend their insights to the project.
Some of the most productive conversations she experienced resulted from the question, “If Eureka Springs was a person, who would it be?” One resident named Dolly Parton as the personification of their town.
“She has this big personality, and she brings people together,” Underwood explained, “She also doesn’t back down from who she is at her heart. She stands for community but also embraces uniqueness within that community.”
Residents also told Underwood they feel a strong sense of community due to the town’s unique layout. Built on mountainsides, the roads are narrow and winding with walkable streets and houses featuring front porches close to one another. Underwood said she was surprised by how often people mentioned that this physical closeness — especially in the tightly packed residential and downtown areas — fosters a feeling of connection. Residents look out for one another and feel connected simply by seeing each other more often, she added.
“It’s harder to have an ‘us-and-them’ mindset when you’re living so close to one another,” Underwood said. “When you’re in a small town like Eureka Springs, every economic decision and natural disaster affects everyone. Emphasis on this connectedness is one way the planning of urban spaces can impact individuals even when they don’t realize it.”
Through her thesis research, Underwood discovered a strong interest in creating spaces that attract community and found a clear direction for her career, prompting her to continue her studies. She will attend the Brandcenter at Virginia Commonwealth University in Richmond to pursue a master’s degree in branding with a concentration in art direction.