Case Study

Walters
State

I turned a reactive design shop into a planned creative operation serving every department at Walters State Community College, raising quality without becoming the bottleneck.

My Role
Project Manager & Sr. Graphic Designer
Scope
The entire college, every department
Team
Mentored a designer; scheduled the full marketing team
Industry
Higher Education

Before

Projects started when the client asked where they were.

There was no production schedule, so work began only when someone followed up, while requests kept coming in from every department at the college. The challenge: how do you raise quality for an entire college without becoming the bottleneck?

The System I Built

A creative operation that runs on a plan

The workflow, request to launch

  1. Intake

    One request form for every department, so every project entered the same way.

  2. Prioritize

    A clear way to decide what came first.

  3. Schedule

    A production schedule for the whole marketing team, so work started on time, not on follow-up.

  4. Proofread

    A proofreading step before anything went out.

  5. Review & approve

    Defined review and approval steps with stakeholders before anything was final.

  6. Test

    Campaigns tested on social before full launch.

The brand standards

  • Brand guidelines

    One source of truth for how the college looks and sounds.

  • Templates

    Ready-made layouts for recurring materials.

  • Canva brand tools

    Brand kits that made on-brand work fast and easy to produce.

The Work

One brand, every department

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My Role

Leading the team, not just the work

I managed schedules for the entire marketing team, including social media, writers, web, and photography, and mentored a designer on the team.

The system meant good work could happen again and again, without me personally touching every piece.

Planned, not reactive

Work started from a production schedule instead of a follow-up email.

Higher quality

Proofreading, review, and testing raised the quality of everything that went out.

One brand

Every department's materials looked and sounded like one college.

Next Project

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