Philadelphia Renaissance is a 2019 report by Campus Philly that uses economic impact data along with interviews from college students and recent grads to show how the increasing number of college graduates is having a positive impact in the Philadelphia Region.
Goal: Combine data and narrative elements in a report that tells a compelling story about the economic effects of regional talent retention.
Challenge: Strike the right balance between hard evidence and story telling. Give the readers enough data to show large-scale trends. Also, give readers the perspectives of unique individuals that are a part of these trends. Readers will stay more engaged if they are made aware of how the trends are affecting real people.
Data visualizations are clear and concise throughout the report. They are put into context by an economic development story that builds in each section.
Statistical evidence is made more relatable on a personal level as readers learn about specific students who benefited from choosing to live and work in Philadelphia after graduation.
To see more reports I designed at Campus Philly, click here
Campus Philly is a nationally recognized economic development organization that increases talent retention in the Philadelphia region by connecting college students to internship opportunities, entry-level jobs and cultural experiences off campus.
For the redesign of the website, I worked with Spacious, an awesome web design agency in West Philly. If you need a new website, check them out and tell them Roger sent you.
Goal: Improve the user experience with a unified web property serving all aspects of the college student lifestyle. Lower barriers for students and employers by streamlining the processes for creating accounts, logging in, and creating content.
Challenge: In 2018 Campus Philly’s web presence consisted of three distinct properties serving Philadelphia college students: a job board, a Philadelphia events calendar highlighting student discounts, and a general website focusing on Campus Philly events and seasonal content. Traffic to the general site remained consistent, but the job board and student discount platform were losing traffic due to technical issues and changes in user behavior. We needed increase our website traffic and engagement.
This was an incremental process. First we brought the events calendar and student discount features into the general website. Students would no longer be required to login to receive discounts and traffic would be sent to partner websites with more information. This simplified the internal process of updating the current student discounts and benefited Campus Philly partners by sending traffic to their websites.
Because of improved content and higher ranking in search results, we saw a 130% overall increase in traffic for the first six months of this process. Metrics for bounce rate and pages per session also improved showing increased engagement.
This initial iteration was followed by a full redesign that added the job board to the general website. The existing features (events calendar, student discount directory, blog) were migrated and updated. On the new jobs board, user experience was improved for students by no longer requiring a user account to browse and apply for jobs. Campus Philly staff would monitor the listings to ensure only quality opportunities are posted, adding to the trust students have for the platform.
Adding flexibility to the job posting process that met the different needs of employers resulted in a 500% increase in job posts in the first month.
The process of posting jobs was improved for employers by adding the option to simply list the job title, add a few tags and link to their own internal application systems instead of requiring them to populate the Campus Philly website with potentially redundant information. Employers also had the option to create posts with full information if they did not have their own job application platform.
Keep Philadelphia Beautiful brings together diverse groups of people for community beautification and environmental education to spark collective action and create flourishing neighborhoods throughout the city.
Goal: Create an annual report describing the efforts and results of Keep Philadelphia Beautiful that can also be used as a marketing tool to secure new engagement opportunities and expand funding for the next fiscal year.
Challenge: Showcase an entire year of work and impact in a concise and dynamic format that motivates the reader to keep turning the pages and keep learning more about the organization.
There are a lot of people who want to help and are not sure how to get started. Keep Philadelphia Beautiful is effective at finding and creating volunteer opportunities as an accessible way to engage community members.
The map shows education and beautification events throughout Philadelphia. It uses waterways and green spaces as landmarks to remind the reader that nature is everywhere, even in a large city.
