Bostonia

Beyond the Degree – The Rise of BU Alumni

Creative Direction / Digital Experience Design

Bostonia Magazine, Boston University’s long-running alumni publication, publishes a digital issue three times per year. For the Fall 2018 issue, I served as Creative Director, leading multiple design and front-end teams to build a cohesive set of immersive digital stories under aggressive timelines. The mandate was clear: elevate the editorial voice while creating an intuitive, responsive experience that felt modern, accessible, and distinctly Boston University.

My Role

• Creative Director for the digital issue

• Led parallel teams of designers & developers

• Visual direction, UX, and digital storytelling

• Component-based design for consistency

• Front-end review and design QA

• Story-specific creative interpretation

• Collaboration with editors, writers, and brand stakeholders

Creative Direction + Process

Each feature article was treated as its own creative world. I encouraged the teams to listen to the tone and emotional arc of each story, letting those cues guide layout, pacing, and visual rhythm. This was not a plug-and-play situation—every story demanded a different design language while still living within the Bostonia brand.

I focused on balancing editorial restraint with visual storytelling: scroll choreography, typography systems, responsive spacing, modular components, and subtle interactive moments that never distracted from the writing. With tight deadlines and several features in production at once, I established creative guardrails, built systems, and ensured consistency across teams—allowing each piece to feel handcrafted, but part of something larger.

Features I Directed

• Rise of the BU Alumni (lead interactive feature)

• Multiple long-form digital stories with custom layout systems

• Photography-forward articles with immersive transitions

• Video and multimedia integrations

• A reusable design system for future Bostonia issues

Impact

This issue set a new bar for Bostonia’s digital storytelling—delivering a clean, immersive, editorially-driven experience that remains a reference point for how BU approaches digital narrative work.