"When the designer and I sat down (online, in our home offices) to start brainstorming the spring 2021 issue of Harvard Ed. magazine, there were lots of reasons NOT to bring up the word that comes around every five years or so in the life of an alumni magazine: redesign. For starters, after months of being cooped up because of the pandemic, I was feeling unmotivated. We had also just won a CASE award, so the thinking was, "why tinker with a good thing?"
Still, we were itching to make changes. So we did. We kept the tried-and-true favorite sections, like Recess, and made the usual changes (new fonts). But we also did something totally new for us: Rather than organize the magazine in the traditional way (short pieces up front, followed by three features and then classmates), we decided to mix short and long pieces together and group them by the way we think about our school: people, ideas, and practice.
This redesign was a fun challenge. Based on the feedback we have received from readers, we think it was a success! In terms of content, our spring issue leaned heavily on education a year after COVID began. For our fall issue, I wanted to get a little away from COVID and focus just on good stories about good people. So we did!"
From the Judges
Interesting, thought provoking, and unique content. Good mix of illustrations and striking photos. Good effort in restructuring to present the content in an innovative way.
