Editorial Design – Morgan Smith

The Life of Alulu

The Story Needed More Than A Cover.

The Life of Alulu was developed as more than a memoir. The goal was to build a complete author brand and publishing system that could honor the weight of the story while supporting promotion, credibility, and long-term visibility.

I led the visual direction across the identity, book cover exploration, author positioning, marketing touchpoints, and digital experience concepts. The work was designed to create a cohesive world around the book rather than treating the cover as a standalone asset.

A Brand Rooted In Legacy.

The visual identity centered on themes of purpose, legacy, leadership, and endurance. I developed a refined brand system that balanced elegance with emotional depth, using a rich editorial palette, elevated typography, and symbolic elements that could carry across publishing, presentation, and promotional materials.

The result was a system that felt timeless, distinguished, and personal — appropriate for both the memoir itself and the broader author platform surrounding it.

Multiple Cover Directions, One Cohesive Vision.

I created multiple book cover concepts to explore different emotional and visual entry points into the story. Each direction approached the memoir from a slightly different lens while staying connected to the same brand foundation.

These concepts helped establish a visual range for the project — from more classic and editorial approaches to more symbolic and narrative-driven compositions — while keeping the identity recognizable and unified.

Built To Support The Author Platform.

Beyond the book itself, I developed supporting brand and marketing materials intended to help the project live across author communications, publishing collateral, and promotional touchpoints. This included brand applications, presentation-ready materials, and a broader system for extending the story into a recognizable public-facing presence.

I also designed web and responsive UX/UI concepts for desktop, tablet, and mobile, shaping how the author platform could present the memoir, the author, and the surrounding story ecosystem in a polished, modern way.

A Publishing System, Not Just A Design Exercise.

This project was ultimately about building a strong foundation for both the memoir and the author behind it. The identity system, cover directions, and digital concepts were all created to work together as one cohesive brand experience — one capable of supporting launch, promotion, and long-term recognition.

Explore The Finished Work:

The final system brought together identity, cover exploration, brand structure, and digital experience concepts to support both the memoir and the author platform as one cohesive publishing brand.

View Brand Guide View Cover Concepts

Where Words Ignite Worlds

Building The Publication Around The Voices.

Where Words Ignite Worlds began as a university classroom project centered on music, social change, and the people using their voices to shape culture and community.

The students brought the stories. I built everything around them.

Working with the course and project leadership, I developed the publication from the ground up — brand identity, magazine design, editorial system, print production, digital edition, website, blog, content organization, image sourcing and curation, editing support, and the infrastructure needed to turn a collection of student work into a real public-facing publication.

The inaugural issue grew into a 34-page magazine across five sections, supported by a dedicated website and digital reading experience.

One Story System Across Print And Digital.

The challenge wasn’t simply designing individual pages.

The magazine needed to feel cohesive even though the stories came from different student writers, covered different subjects, and moved between academic analysis, interviews, music, culture, community, and social change.

I created the visual and editorial system that connected them.

That meant establishing the brand, typography, layouts, hierarchy, cover direction, recurring section structures, image treatment, pacing, and overall visual rhythm of the issue — then carrying that same identity into the website, e-magazine, and blog.

The goal was for someone to encounter the project in print or online and immediately feel like they had entered the same world.

Editing Without Erasing The Writer.

Because the articles were student-authored, my role wasn’t to replace their voices.

I worked around those voices — organizing content, editing for presentation and readability, curating photography and supporting imagery, building hierarchy, and creating enough consistency that the publication felt professionally produced without making every writer sound like the same person.

That balance mattered.

The finished work needed to feel polished while still belonging to the students who created the stories.

From Class Project To Public Platform.

The project originated in the Spring 2024 IUPUI/IUI course “Rhythm & Revolution: Music and Social Change” and grew into an independent publication designed to continue beyond the classroom. The live platform includes the magazine, a blog, contribution pathways, and an invitation for future writers and community voices to participate.

What started as coursework became something people could actually hold, read, share, revisit, and contribute to.

That required thinking beyond the initial issue.

I wasn’t just designing a magazine. I was building the brand and publishing framework that could support what came next.

Built To Give The Work Somewhere To Live.

Where Words Ignite Worlds became a complete publishing experience spanning brand, editorial design, print, digital publishing, web, blog, content curation, photography direction, editing, and production.

The students wrote the stories.

My job was to make sure those stories had a world worthy of them.