Catholic University of America: Creating 12 School Websites

Web

screencapture-nursing-catholic-edu-index-html-2018-08-22-17_52_44.png The image above is a screenshot of The Catholic University of America School of Nursing website I worked on as lead information architect and copywriter. I composed the headlines and messaging on this page in addition to organizing the content, navigation, and site structure. I did this for all 12 schools of The Catholic University of America, which you can find links to below.

The Catholic University of America approached us with a unique challenge: Create 12 separate websites, one for each of the 12 schools housed within their institution.

When we started this project, all 12 schools were living under the main Catholic University of America website and users were forced to take long, confusing routes to find the content they needed, often sorting through pages of duplicated content and broken links. I spent several months familiarizing myself with the Catholic University website, which consisted of thousands of pages, organizing school-related information into a content migration map and creating 12 informed sitemaps to set the foundation for each new school website. In addition to extensive research, in order to properly communicate the unique message of each school through content organization and writing web copy, I traveled down to Washington D.C. to host several discovery interviews and present concepts to the deans and key members of each of the 12 schools.

From there I worked with a team of designers and developers to create each of these sites and write new copy for the pages listed below. Our goal throughout the design, development, organization, and writing stages of these 12 websites was to maintain the delicate balance of showing unity amongst the schools, held together by the overarching mission and vision of The Catholic University of America, while still representing the unique personality and core message of each individual school.

Throughout this project, I worked as the lead information architect for all 12 school websites and sole copywriter for the specific pages listed below:

School of Architecture and Planning

Homepage

National Catholic School of Social Service

School of Theology and Religious Studies

Metropolitan School of Professional Studies

Homepage

School of Philosophy (new site not yet live)

Homepage

School of Nursing

Homepage

School of Arts and Sciences

Homepage

The Busch School of Business

School of Canon Law

Homepage

School of Engineering

Columbus School of Law (new site not yet live)

Homepage

The Rome School of Music, Drama, and Art

Homepage

Shimer Landing Page and Retargeting Ads

Social Media & Retargeting Ads, Web

In addition to writing a brochure and several web pages for Shimer Great Books School, as well as optimizing blog posts and composing Facebook posts for the Shimer social media campaign, I also wrote copy for retargeting ads and the landing page they lead to.

Below you will find a few samples of the retargeting ads and landing page we developed. The copy was produced by me; design by Ed Macko at Elliance.

Below you will find a sample of my writing from the Shimer landing page:

Great books build great minds.

What would it be like to walk into a room with the world’s greatest minds?

Not just once, but every day, for the next four years. That’s what you’ll find at the Shimer Great Books School at North Central College. Through study and discussion of original works by the greatest authors, you’ll gain insight, perspective and wisdom that will enlighten you in your pursuit of understanding.

Five signs that you belong at Shimer Great Books School

You live to read

If one were to call reading “your hobby,” it would be an insult. The words insatiable or voracious might better describe your desire to get lost in the pages of a good book.

You love playing devil’s advocate

You’ve never been one to pass up a battle of wits, and you can’t think of a better way to spend your days than sitting around a table wrestling for meaning with others who share your appetite for discourse.

You never waste an opportunity to learn

Some may call your determination more of an obsession, and they might be right. You know that a world of untapped knowledge awaits. Why waste time discovering it?

You see things, well, differently

You’ve been called unconventional, intuitive, before-your-time, or maybe flat out crazy — titles also given to Earhart, Picasso, Woolf, Plato, Galileo and Gandhi. Great leaders see the world differently, and they build upon the wisdom of the trailblazers before them.

You hate being told what to think

You’re done with easy answers and regurgitated facts. You want to dive deeper for meaning, purpose and answers to humanity’s deep questions. Your journey starts right here, at Shimer.

You can view the full Shimer Great Books School landing page live here. Due to A/B Testing, you may see this copy or an alternate version of the copy when you visit this page. I am responsible for writing the copy on each version, and the decision of which site visitors see which iterations of the copy is based on random selection.