50th Anniversary Transforming Lives Magazine
Background
Each year, the College of Education and Human Development (CEHD) publishes a magazine detailing recent research outcomes and other news from the college. As the Senior Graphic Designer for CEHD, I was responsible for the design, art direction, layout, and any photographs needed.
A Diverse Audience
Multiple Pathways to Impact
Our magazine is sent to and viewed by peer institutions (other universities nationally), donors, legislators (both state and federal), current and former students, community partners, and current faculty and staff.
Despite our diverse audience streams, the goal of the magazine is to inform peer institutions and our stakeholders about current research and activities, so that when they vote on national rankings, CEHD can move ahead in both perceived value and prestige.
Team Effort
Art Direction
I was responsible for art direction and graphic design, while other members of the communications and marketing team contributed content. I hired and worked with an illustrator to develop a graphic theme for our 50th anniversary issue. For maximum "oomph," I also concepted and designed a 6-page pull-out timeline spread. The magazine also featured gold foil on multiple spreads and spot UV throughout.
Metrics for Success
Boosting Our National Reputation
Texas A&M has a short-form URL generator (similar to bit.ly) called tx.ag. I created a tx.ag link for the magazine in order to track impressions, and over the course of a few months we received 898 views of the online version of the magazine.
Four of our program rankings increased significantly from 2019 to 2020 after publication. Per the U.S. News and World Report rankings website, "the data for the rankings... came from statistical surveys of more than 2,125 programs and from reputation surveys sent to more than 23,000 academics and professionals, conducted in fall 2019 and early 2020.
To gather the peer assessment data, U.S. News asked deans, program directors and senior faculty to judge the academic quality of programs in their field on a scale of 1 (marginal) to 5 (outstanding). In business, education, engineering, law, nursing and medicine, U.S. News also surveyed professionals who hire or work with new graduates. The schools supplied U.S. News with the names for those surveyed for peer assessment and the professionals in each field in summer 2019."
Online Graduate Education
From 16th to 8th
Educational Administration
From 13th to 4th
Special Education Program
From 24th to 4th
Curriculum & Instruction
From 23rd to 9th
