A snippet from the former DEIB page on CCA.EDU

Vev Integration

A Marketing and Communications department | Q2 2021

CCA’s marketing team needed more flexibility to create innovative page designs without waiting for quarterly dev sprints. I researched third-party platforms, tested the top candidates, and recommended Vev based on cost and capability. The integration gave marketing autonomy to build dynamic content, resulting in an SF Design Week award for our DEIB page and the successful transition from print to digital for our magazine, Glance.

Problem

The marketing and communications team at CCA does not have a dedicated web developer, and as such the Web Team would meet with them quarterly for a single feature sprint. This scarcity in dev resources stagnated the design of cca.edu. Because CCA is an art and design school, we need a website that sells prospective students on the design education they can achieve. This level of innovation was impossible with our limited development time.

Solution

I researched how organizations like the New York Times create variety in their page designs. Most of them outsource innovative layouts to third-party platforms rather than building everything in-house. I compared options like Shorthand and Vev against the effort it would take to build similar tools into our CMS. I tested each platform and created sample pages for the top three candidates, then presented them to the marketing team with my recommendation. After reviewing costs, they went with Vev.

My research document for this project can be found here

From the Putting on Protest newsroom page

Outcomes

The marketing team uses Vev for high-impact pages and newsroom content. The DEIB page we created with it won an SF Design Week award the same year. They also used the tool to replace our print magazine, Glance, which cut down on environmental impact and allowed for more frequent issues. In the newsroom, Vev helps showcase innovative student projects and build the story of CCA as an active, forward-thinking school.

Notable use cases:

Dynamic Diversity, Equity, Inclusion, and Belonging - Won an SF Design Week Award
CCA Glance
Newsroom: Creative Citizenship on Campus
Newsroom: Bay Area Scholastic Art Awards
Newsroom: Putting on Protest

Please note that these links may not be active, as CCA’s impending closure may result in the unpublishing on content.

The following is a full-length screenshot of the DEIB page on .EDU, designed in Vev. From CCA's DEIB page

For contrast, here is the same content in our native CMS. From CCA's DEIB page