Capturing Columbia

Great visual storytelling starts with genuine human moments—I transformed a dated set of photography into a searchable enterprise image library that empowers campus teams to share the true energy of Columbia.

Key Team Members: Ra A. Hearne, Content Strategist / Sirin Samman, Lead Photographer

The Overview

Institutional photography had historically suffered from fragmented silos: lack of recent and relevant imagery, content scattered across local hard drives or managed through expensive and off-brand freelance contracts. Communications teams faced bottlenecks trying to locate and deploy timely, authentic, on-brand assets.

The Results

5,200

Annual Self-Service Downloads

128%

Enterprise DAM Growth

+35%

Increase of the existing user base

The Strategy

  • Editorial Creative Direction

    Shifted photography direction away from static, staged setups toward vibrant, candid campus life, and diverse community perspectives

  • Enterprise Asset Architecture

    Designed a standardized taxonomy and metadata tagging hierarchy (categorized by school, academic milestone, priority initiative, and usage rights).

  • Operations and Marketing

    Authored standardized briefings for photographers/videographers and created/deployed internal marketing to drive platform adoption and awareness.

Projects

  • The New York Knicks

    Bringing a holistic experience to an iconic brand - on and off the basketball court.

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  • Proposal Design Systems

    Transforming complex academic priorities into high-impact visual narratives

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  • Baby’s First App and Branding

    Toys and Products reviewed by people you trust (Concept)

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  • The Alumni Newsletter

    Creating a better newsletter experience for a world-wide audience of 240,000 alumni.

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