The Queens Magazine
Client
Queens University of Charlotte
Year
2023-2024
The Queens Magazine keeps alumni informed and invested in the Queens University of Charlotte by reporting on university news and campus happenings. Invested alumni become donors to the university, supporting fundraising efforts.
Three issues of the magazine were published in 2023-2024 in conjunction with the roll out of a new university brand. The design of the magazine adapted across these three editions to align with the brand and how it is expressed to the alumni audience.
Winter 2023
The Winter 2023 edition of the Queens Magazine rolled out just before the new brand roll out and maintained a similar look and feel to previous editions.
Knowing that an element of the soon-to-be-released brand would be a new neon yellow color, this color was incorporated into a 4-page feature as a way to slowly introduce brand elements.
Other featured stories in the magazine allowed for more creative freedom in design. Fonts and colors were selected to complement the subject matter rather than matching the current or future university brand.
Summer 2023
The Summer 2023 edition was one of the first introductions that alumni had to the new Queens brand.
The entire magazine adhered to the new brand, introducing new fonts, colors, and design elements.
The cover story was a look into the development of the brand, highlighting how brand decisions complement strategic goals. This served to increase acceptance and adoption of the brand with alumni, and audience identied as historic resistors to brand changes.
Spring 2024
After more time in the new brand, we learned which elements were more widely accepted by alumni audiences. The magazine design was updated to highlight those elements and downplay others.
The use of neon yellow was decreased based on feedback from Queens alumni.
Cleaner, more simplified layouts were used throughout this edition and brand elements were more subtle than in the Summer 2023 edition.