How smart educational institutions build communities with visual storytelling

University of Cambridge

‘Professor Stephen Hawking’ tells the story of the late genius, who came to Cambridge in 1962 as a PhD student. This piece was published after Hawking’s death in 2018, and pays tribute with pictures, words, video and archival material.

It can be difficult to make scanned documents and historical photographs look good on the web; however, this story shows how to use Shorthand’s section types to present the artefacts in an engaging, full-screen format.

University of Amsterdam

‘Smart Cities’ shows how UvA researchers are examining the massive potential, pitfalls, and impact of a connected society. It explores the technology in an engaging way via a striking animation effect, which is achieved by layering images one after the other.

Emory University

‘Fresh Hopes’ is a simple piece that interviews 16 first year students at Emory about their hopes and dreams for the future. At its conclusion are a few different CTAs to other articles or information. Take note of the consistent style throughout, and the sharing buttons at the top right hand side.

Often these types of stories are shared in digital magazines, and such links are a great opportunity to chase that ‘never ending engagement’, signposting readers to other pages of interest.

Holdsworth Center

‘A big, red Merriam-Webster dictionary… A story of success at Carl Wunsche Sr. High School’ is one part of the Holdsworth 2023 Impact Report. It is a case study that celebrates the achievements of the Campus Leadership Program, which focuses on improving the quality of public schools. The article uses Scrollpoints to build its striking open animations — readers scroll to navigate to different parts of a larger image. 

It’s one part of a larger report, and demonstrates that, by cutting up swaths of content into separate stories, publishers can aid the user experience — as long as there are clear points of navigation throughout the separate items.

University of Bristol

‘Know Your Bristol: empowering community exploration and co-creation of local history and heritage’ details an Arts and Humanities Research Council-funded collaboration, supported by Bristol University historians, that has enabled the wider Bristol community to create, explore, and preserve their local history.

It is beautifully designed throughout, with a consistent identity. A looping autoplay video, as well as foreground and background videos make it truly special.

University of Denver

‘Kings of College Hockey’ is one section of the University of Denver’s student and alumni Magazine. This section is about the university’s championship-winning hockey team. One story in particularly, ‘We are #TENver’, includes another great example of the Scrollpoints section, with one larger animated map scrolled through by the user.

Adding to the hook factor, UD adds Instagram embeds to the Scrollpoints, sharing posts from alumni communities in those locations.

Rutgers

‘Opening the Gates to Global Racial Justice’ tells the story of Gregory Pardlo, an alumnus of, and an Associate Professor at, Rutgers University-Camden. In Africa for the first time, Pardlo recounts his outpouring of emotion when visiting a site where captured men, women, and children were shackled, sold, and forced onto slave ships.

A reminder of a dark period in history, the piece features image layering and CTAs to more content. A standout moment is an interactive aerial photo of Gorée Island, off Dakar in Senegal.

Durham University

‘Eternal Ascent’ is the teaser to an online exhibition about a 1924 Everest expedition. With some custom code, the creators have reversed the scroll direction, so readers scroll upwards from the bottom, in a fun nod to climbing Everest as the story progresses.

UCL

Portico magazine is another great example of a University support and alumni magazine, a good one to look at for anyone considering digital magazines.

The landing page is simple, with tiles linking to the various features. It has a CTA at the end, and a burger navigation at the top left hand side.