Ideas, insights and inspirations.

Reducing the frequency of a printed alumni magazine is a controversial idea. Generations of alumni will react to this change differently. However, as Yogi Berra said, “if you see a fork in the road, take it.” Benefits and Costs of Print Alumni Magazine Great alumni flagship magazines are beautiful, comfortable and great coffee table pieces. They have the potential to move your college’s perception/reputation needle with alumni and friends.  They draw you into the great stories and iconic photographs that slow you down and take you back into the memory lane of your youthful idealism. Above all, they don’t get lost in the email clutter or sea of web distractions. However, they are not cheap, they’re difficult to produce and have a limited reach. It’s not uncommon for them to consume budgets of over $100,000 for quarterly or bi-annual issues. Production requires teams of editorial and design staff. Despite best efforts, you can only tell so many stories that can … Continue reading

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In relaunching the online Carnegie Mellon responsive university magazine, we have created a technologically sophisticated online university magazine which is commensurate with the Carnegie Mellon brand. It has a singular mission: to build brand awareness for Carnegie Mellon name with people who are not aware of the brand name (“brand unawares”). Two forces are powering this new relaunch: big data and branding. Let me begin with two high-level views: Let me now illustrate the smarts behind this: 1. Data powers the entire user experience: The online magazine sections (aka departments in print parlance) are based on a combination of popular SEO keywords and CMU strategic priorities and. The story tags too are intentionally hand-picked by use of popular SEO keywords. Instead of displaying popular tags alphabetically, they are prioritized in descending popularity order, with ability for site administrators to designate a couple of tags as sticky tags based on university’s strategic priorities. 2. New interactive design deepens the brand: CMU … Continue reading

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Being a responsive web design agency, we know the importance of adding content on the web. But in app-centric world, it’s often forgotten how important content on the web really is. With the CMU Today project completed, I reflected on the benefits a responsive online magazine provides. Those benefits are directly related to what the web is for — a medium for sharing information. Here are three things you gain by making your site online and responsive. 1. Increase Social Reach – “Going viral” is every marketers dream. Right now, it’s easier than ever on the web. We live in a time of social networks, emails, and texts. Every article on CMU Today can be instantly and easily shared by its readers. Social shares allow you to tap into your readers’ personal networks. This lead to more people seeing the article and more shares by these people. Your article may not be the next viral cat video YouTube hit. But … Continue reading

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We are proud to announce the launch of a responsive web design magazine for Carnegie Mellon alumni and friends. Initially launched a decade ago before RWD was born with uncertainty about whether alumni would engage with an online version, the magazine was initially designed for desktop and laptop devices and had a smaller content management system. As the multi-device world matured and the number of users increased, the magazine was sorely in need of an upgrade, which we magically completed in a short 3 months. How did we achieve the herculean feat in a short 3 months? Four secrets. First, we reused the existing design and Sitemap instead of reinventing new ones. Second, our seasoned development team has been on a roll transforming numerous websites into responsive web design; they have worked out most of the challenges around navigation, breakpoints, image sizing, optimal page size, and other subtle issues. Third, during the initial build, we had the foresight and taken … Continue reading

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