As the official alumni magazine of Columbia College, Columbia College Today has the monumental task of chronicling the accomplishments and stories of Columbia College graduates and faculty. The magazine is produced 6 times a year and represents a key component of the school's alumni communications.

The Problem

I was asked to redesign the Columbia College Today Web site and to streamline the production process using Drupal. At the onset of this project, the visual design of the site was disjointed and arcane and the online publication process for each issue was long and tedious. It wasn't uncommon for issues to be out for close to a month before the online edition came online.

The Design

I first created a site design that reflected both the magazine's design and the College's brand. I used a very clear grid and white space to suggest a magazine layout, while the cleanliness and simplicity of the design made the article content the star of the show. Large photo usage on the front page gives the illusion that each issue is a new design.

Drupal to the Rescue

In order to speed up production, I set about reproducing the issue creation process in Drupal, streamlining it along the way. I worked with a developer to create a custom image upload module that allowed photos to be cropped and color corrected all in one step. Online content entry allowed production staff to make corrections as content was being entered. As issues were produced, other enhancements were added such as blogs, videos and interactivity by way of comments.

The Results

These improvements culminated to cut the production time in half and at times allowed the online edition to be up before the printed issue hit subscriber's mailboxes. Online readership soared, allowing the magazine to cut back on international shipments. In the summer of 2009 the magazine produced it's first online-only issue, saving thousands.