UCLA Alumni — Brand Rollout & Visual Ecosystem
Translating a new institutional brand into web experiences, email systems, campaigns, templates, and physical applications for 660,000+ alumni.
- 660k+
- alumni reached across every channel
- 10+
- websites and landing pages designed
- +30%
- email open rate vs the previous system
- 3 mo
- to org-wide adoption of the new templates
01 · Brand rollout
From guidelines to a working brand.
UCLA Alumni was transitioning into a new visual identity. The direction existed, but the everyday system still had to be built, adapted, and scaled across real communications.
Communications needed to feel consistent across a large, diverse alumni audience.
The brand had to work across institutional webpages, newsletters, campaign art, flyers, banners, and physical spaces.
The shift toward lowercase, approachable messaging had to coexist with university-level clarity, credibility, and stakeholder expectations.
Instead of one-off assets, the work became a repeatable visual language for recurring needs.
A more approachable institutional voice.
The rollout was not only about colors and logos. It meant adapting the brand into a lowercase, story-led, action-oriented language while keeping the clarity expected from a major university brand.
I treated recurring calls to action—RSVP, register, give, submit, deadlines, and QR codes—as a reusable system rather than isolated design decisions.
02 · Alumni website design
Bringing the brand into a digital storytelling platform.
I helped translate the new UCLA Alumni brand into the website and Bruin Stories platform—a storytelling experience organized around video, audio, written features, and short-form inspiration.
Bruin stories start here.
The landing had to feel like an inspirational story, not a directory — so the first thing you meet is a person, not a menu.
- Lowercase headline system to make an institutional brand feel warmer and more personal.
- Full-width video hero as the entry point, setting an editorial tone from the first scroll.
- A clear “start here” cue that orients first-time visitors instantly.
Watch, listen, read.
Bruins consume stories differently, so the page is built from format-specific modules rather than one flat feed.
- Separate blocks for video, audio, and written stories — each format gets its own space.
- A short-form “quick inspiration” row to pull people deeper without a big commitment.
- A consistent card rhythm so new stories drop in without redesigning the page.
03 · Web design
Designing web experiences across UCLA.
I designed 10+ websites and landing pages for events, advocacy initiatives, and programs across UCLA. Each experience had to remain consistent with the brand while making its primary action—register, submit, learn, or participate—clear and easy to complete.
Get people to participate
An advocacy site built to turn alumni sentiment into usable evidence — fast to read, faster to contribute to.
- The site collected 100+ written statements from alumni supporting the research funding case.
- Those statements were submitted as part of the advocacy documentation behind the appeal, which contributed to funding being reinstated.
- The Chancellor’s office recognized the team’s work on the site.
Designing for a different audience.
Other units across the UCLA system regularly commissioned our team for their own sites. Summer Programs was the largest of them — a full campaign and site to drive course enrollment.
- Designed and shipped both the campaign and the site, aimed at getting students to enroll in UCLA’s summer courses.
- Highest enrollment in three summers, with more than half the programs selling out.
- The audience wasn’t Alumni, so the site needed its own visual register — built fresh, and cleared by Strategic Communications without a redesign round.
04 · Re-designed email system
Redesigning the most visible communication channel.
I redesigned UCLA Alumni’s email system in Figma, creating reusable patterns for newsletters, announcements, events, fundraising, program communications, and editorial campaigns. The system helped the new brand scale consistently across recurring alumni touchpoints.
One system, many sends.
A flexible set of email patterns so every kind of message stays on-brand without rebuilding from scratch.
- Modular headers, event sections, CTA bands, and sponsor treatments. Swap-in image blocks and leader spotlights for different programs.
- Shared header, footer, and spacing rules so any sender stays consistent.
- Built in Figma to hand off cleanly to the teams running the sends.
- The whole organization had adopted the new templates within three months of launch.
A new brand; refreshed email designs
I redesigned the full email system around the brand the organization was moving toward — every recurring send that reached our 660,000+ alumni.
- Condensed thousands of individual sends into a small set of send types, covering everything from fundraising campaigns and newsletters to diversity efforts and co-sponsored business development.
- Emails had to fold several events, announcements and CTAs into a one-page read. I kept a consistent aesthetic across all of them — modern, minimal, and less “institutional.” The new system lifted open rates by more than 30% against the previous designs.
- I built the templates alongside the development team, walking them through the new blocks and what does and doesn’t read as on-brand, so the system stayed intact after handoff.
05 · Campaign art design, across digital and print
Different personalities, one visual family.
Each campaign needed its own energy while still belonging to the UCLA brand. I developed distinctive, attention-grabbing concepts without letting the work feel overly institutional.
Spring Sing 2026
A music-led identity with its own energy that still reads unmistakably as UCLA Alumni.
- One visual system adapted across print, email, and social.
- Bold, performance-driven art that stands out in a busy feed.
- Built to flex from a banner down to a story frame.
Beat’SC 2025
An identity built around cinematic references and entertainment culture, for an audience that lives in it.
- Film-inspired language that signals the industry at a glance.
- A dark, premium palette that separates it from campus events.
- Consistent treatment across banners, social, and print.
More from the range: the same brand system stretched across sports, celebration, and partner-facing campaigns.
06 · Physical applications
From screens to real spaces.
The brand also had to live beyond digital channels — as environmental graphics, signage, posters, certificates, printed pieces, and event materials.
Bruin Stories, on the building.
The same storytelling system that lived online, wrapped onto the James West Alumni Center itself. I was in charge of designing a new feel to elevate the building and the space where the team worked and events took place.
- Story-led window graphics that carry the digital voice into physical space.
- Scaled for a full entrance while keeping type legible at a distance.
- Turns a building into an extension of the brand, not just signage.
Brand language at architectural scale.
A concept translating the visual system onto physical columns — where the message meets people in the space, creating rapport with our mission as a whole.
- “Story of…” framing repeated as a large-scale environmental motif.
- High-contrast type built to hold up at building scale.
- Proves the system stretches from an email block to a column.
07 · Print assets
Print design for all purposes
Posters, brochures, certificates, folders, banners and event standees. Print is where the system gets tested hardest — fixed sizes, no responsive fallback, and type that has to hold up both at arm's length and across a room.
08 · Photography and video
Creating content aligned with the brand.
Beyond design, I shot photography and video for several campaigns. From Bruin Stories to Commencement ceremonies, I covered events with imagery consistent with the new branding, and filmed and edited video.
Exploring new ideas using cutting-edge AI tools
I volunteered for an experimental project testing new technologies: a short film to serve as the main ad for Alumni Day 2027. It was the first piece our team produced end to end with AI.
- Learned and executed a pipeline to design and animate frames entirely with AI — using ChatGPT, MidJourney, Veo and Kling together at different steps of the process to create each frame.
- ElevenLabs and AI-generated audio to create the sound design of the entire short film.
- Worked across the team to gather historic photography and archival footage for later animation, brought to life using AI.
My work was not a single campaign. It was a working visual ecosystem for how UCLA Alumni communicates across web, email, print, campaigns, events, and stakeholder-led materials.
