Print Design
I launched my own business, Paper Forest, in 2011, to help publishers across the Southeast find printing solutions. Paper Forest worked with newspapers and magazines to redesign publications, implement InDesign, create new pageflows/workflows with the press, and create beautiful design solutions. Clients include the Atlanta Journal-Constitution, the Georgia Press Association, Marietta Daily Journal, Gwinnett Daily Post, Athens Banner-Herald, Valdosta Daily Times, and Community Newspapers, Inc.
While working with newspaper clients has evolved over the past decades, the need for well-designed magazines and other collateral hasn’t. I maintain ties with many of my clients, creating a series of magazines for newspapers across North Georgia:
- Lake Living
- Mountain Traveler
- Hello Habersham
- And other magazines on an as-needed basis, such as Scoop, and publications for the Jackson (County) Herald and Valdosta Daily Times
With a background in publication design and graphic design, I consistently create posters, booklets, posters, whitepapers, and other special publications as needed. I also recently wrapped up an 11-year stint designing special editions for the Atlanta Journal-Constitution, in which I assembled and edited content and designed broadsheet newspaper pages.
In my previous position as Communications Director at the Warnell School of Forestry and Natural Resources at the University of Georgia, I produced a biannual alumni magazine, The Warnell Log. When I arrived at the school in 2019, one of my first projects was redesigning the magazine—it had become tired and uninspired. With a school that had so much hands-on activity, I felt the magazine needed to be driven by strong visuals and lean on the color palette in the UGA branding guide.
The last magazine I published prior to my departure in 2023 was a special issue focused on carbon. Many school alumni were interested in carbon-related issues, and the school’s faculty were conducting research that defined many variables in this area.
While I worked with a graphic designer to produce the magazine, I conceived and executed both the redesign and the special carbon section. Most issues of the magazine represented a collaboration between the two of us.
Photography
Along with video editing and podcasting, I also have experience with photography. Here is a selection of photos from research stories where I joined faculty and students in the field:
Advertising Campaigns
Example 1: Digital + Print
The challenge: Lack of visibility on a large, sprawling campus.
The solution: A cohesive campaign using a variety of print and digital ads, layering consistent messaging and vivid photography to create an emotional response.
The details: In the fall of 2021, I launched a pilot digital marketing campaign to raise awareness of specific undergraduate programs. The response was encouraging, and in 2022 I launched a 9-month campaign, timed to coincide with new student advising periods. The campaign also targeted students in nearby transfer schools and ran alongside pole banners across campus to reinforce the messaging. By the end of the most recent campaign, conversions increase by 314% and enrollment numbers were trending up.
Example 2: Promotion
+ Funding
The challenge: Chestnut trees have been decimated by blight. But thanks to advances in genetics, a new generation offers hope for the future. The process used to insert blight-resistant genes into embryonic chestnut cells was pioneered by a UGA researcher.
The solution: I set about to tell the story of this process as one of the features in the alumni magazine. After the story was published, a major donor to The Chestnut Foundation reached out to better understand the process in detail. So, we made a video to explain it.
The results: The benefactor was so intrigued that he agreed to fully fund the lead technician to continue the transformation process across other varieties of chestnut trees.