The Challenge
The Career Center’s existing Year in Review was a designed, branded version of the annual report, but it was essentially a data dump: dense with facts and figures, difficult to skim, and lacking the narrative context that would make the numbers meaningful to Fordham University and Student Affairs leadership.
The Pitch
I proposed reimagining the format entirely, shifting the Year in Review from a data-forward summary to a storytelling piece that surfaces both qualitative and quantitative results from the reporting period. The goal was to give leadership a document that communicated impact, not just output, with an experience that felt like a magazine or a narrative-driven publication.
The Approach
I served as editor and designer, building the document around photos, testimonials, and descriptive copy that gave each data point context and narrative weight. Our data specialist, Mirza Amin, provided the underlying data and reporting points throughout. Rather than presenting statistics in isolation, the redesigned publication wove them into a cohesive story of the office’s signature initiatives and key accomplishments.
Outcome
The reimagined format distinguished the Career Center’s reporting from peer offices — few comparable publications take this storytelling approach to annual reporting. The format’s success laid the groundwork for further expansion in subsequent years (see: 2025 Year in Review), including deeper assessment presentations.
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