Project Overview

Over several years, I helped shape the creative direction of DeVry University's evolving social presence, developing concepts, campaigns, motion, video, and recurring content designed to make the brand more recognizable and engaging across social channels.

Working closely with the social team, we developed a more consistent creative approach while continuing to experiment with new ways to connect with prospective students, current students, alumni, and graduates.

The work ranged from ongoing social content and student storytelling to scholarship campaigns, graduation experiences, and original social concepts.

My Role

As Creative Director for DeVry's social work, I partnered closely with the social team to help establish and evolve the creative direction across the university's social channels.

My role ranged from developing and pitching concepts to art direction, design, motion, video production, and guiding creative through execution.

My work included:

• Creative concept development and direction

• Social campaign development

• Art direction and design

• Motion and video production

• Visual storytelling and experimentation

• Cross-functional creative collaboration

The Challenge

Building a Social Presence From the Ground Up

When I joined DeVry’s social team, the university’s social presence was highly fragmented. There were dozens of Facebook brand pages and nearly 1,000 Facebook groups, but no official Instagram or Twitter presence. Creative varied across channels, with no consistent visual approach or content strategy connecting the brand.

Before we could focus on creating more engaging content, the team needed to simplify the ecosystem and establish a stronger foundation for how DeVry showed up in social.

Dozens → 3

Facebook brand pages

~1,000 → ~10

Facebook groups

We consolidated the Facebook presence into three primary pages, DeVry, Keller, and Alumni—and reduced nearly 1,000 groups to approximately 10 manageable communities.

With a more focused channel structure in place, we could turn our attention to building a recognizable and consistent social presence.

Evolving the Social Brand

Creating a Recognizable Content System

With a more focused social ecosystem in place, the next step was establishing a consistent creative presence for DeVry across social.

Working with the social team, we developed recurring content categories that gave the channels structure while allowing the creative to evolve. Motivational content, program-focused posts, student and alumni testimonials, graduation content, and campaign-specific storytelling became regular parts of the social calendar.

Rather than relying on a single visual template, I developed creative approaches that could flex across different messages and audiences while still feeling connected to the DeVry brand.

As the channels matured, we continued experimenting with motion, video, original concepts, and more human-centered storytelling, giving DeVry a broader visual vocabulary for social.

Creating Moments of Engagement

Turning Graduation Into a Social Experience

Graduation gave us an opportunity to connect DeVry’s social presence with one of the most meaningful moments in the student experience.

Using footage captured during commencement, I developed a four-part social video series centered on the voices and experiences of graduating students. I reviewed the footage, identified recurring themes, and shaped the stories into focused videos exploring what motivated graduates, how they felt about reaching graduation, and how they described their DeVry experience.

The series extended commencement beyond a single day, turning authentic graduate moments into social content that could continue the conversation.

Extending the Experience

We also looked for ways to bring social participation into the commencement experience itself. Using SocialWall Pro, live posts from graduates, families, and attendees could appear on screens above the stage during the ceremony—connecting the social conversation with the physical event in real time.

I also learned Spark AR to create and publish custom Instagram filters, including graduation cap and confetti effects that graduates could apply to their photos and share.

Together, these experiences gave graduates and their families new ways to participate, celebrate, and share the moment.

Launching Women+Tech

Extending a Scholarship Launch Through Social

DeVry’s new Women+Tech Scholarship required a social campaign that could introduce the program, build awareness, and communicate the opportunity to prospective students.

For the launch, I led the creative direction and production of a short video introducing the scholarship and its purpose.

After developing the launch creative, I saw an opportunity to extend the campaign with a more social-first idea. I created and pitched an additional concept built around a simple message: “Why are women in tech? Because we can.”

Using portraits of women, bold typography, and rhythmic editing synced to a drumbeat, the piece shifted from explaining the scholarship to celebrating the women it was designed to support—giving the campaign a more emotional and memorable follow-up in social.

Putting Students at the Center

Turning Real Experiences Into Brand Stories

As DeVry’s social presence evolved, student and alumni stories became an increasingly important part of how we communicated the brand.

Rather than relying solely on traditional marketing messages, we looked for opportunities to let students and graduates speak for themselves—using their experiences to create more authentic, relatable social content.

One example was DeVry graduate Serena Nuccio. I helped shape the creative approach and oversaw production of her story, working with our video partners to turn her experience into content for social and digital channels.

55.8K

Reach

17.5K

Impressions

3%

Engagement Rate

The campaign reached more than 55,000 people and generated a 3% engagement rate, demonstrating the potential of authentic student storytelling to connect with audiences on social.

Building a Stronger Social Presence

From Fragmented Channels to a Recognizable Brand Experience

Over several years, DeVry’s social presence evolved from a fragmented collection of channels and inconsistent creative into a more focused, recognizable, and engaging brand experience.

Consolidating the social ecosystem created a stronger foundation, while recurring content, student storytelling, motion, original campaigns, and interactive experiences gave the brand more ways to connect with its audiences.

My role evolved alongside the work, from establishing consistent creative approaches to developing and pitching original concepts, directing campaigns, producing motion and video, and continually exploring new ways for the brand to engage through social.

+738%

Reach  

+432%

Views  

+223%

Clicks to Blog

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Strong social isn’t simply about producing more content. It’s about creating ideas, systems, and experiences that give people a reason to notice, engage, and participate.