Stanford University's Shorenstein APARC (Stanford University Press): Turning Scholarship into Signal
Brought in as a dedicated creative director and hands-on visual designer, I led end-to-end marketing and presentation design for Stanford University Press’s Studies of the Walter H. Shorenstein Asia-Pacific Research Center (APARC) series—an interdisciplinary program within Stanford’s Freeman Spogli Institute focused on the politics, economies, and societies of contemporary Asia. I partnered directly with scholars and authors to translate dense, policy-oriented research into clear, compelling assets: social campaigns, one-pagers, press/partner toolkits, and working decks for global colloquia and book talks. For two flagship titles, I also produced original on-location photography in Southeast Asia; these images appear throughout the books, anchor the marketing creative, and power the authors’ presentation narratives. The photography was additionally featured in a Greenpoint (Brooklyn) gallery show on post-genocidal nations that are evolving into technology hubs (the image below received the top jury prize). Collectively, the creative and event cadence helped this series launch ahead of any prior SUP series in pre-orders and early sales.
Problem
Stanford’s internal marketing resources are necessarily lean and optimized for baseline coverage across many titles, resulting in limited time for bespoke creative, tailored messaging, or event support specific to a series’ unique scholarly audience. APARC titles, while rich with insight, needed a coherent visual system, faster asset production, clearer narratives for non-academic audiences, and author-ready decks and template kits to convert colloquia and book talks into measurable demand and sales momentum.
Solution
I built a design-led launch engine around the APARC series that combined narrative clarity, production efficiency, and author enablement: -- Series-level and book title identity & system: A cohesive visual language and modular template library spanning book talk decks, colloquium keynotes, one-pagers, social graphics, email headers, and landing components; speeding turnaround and ensuring cross-channel consistency. -- Message architecture: Distilled complex research into accessible positioning, headlines, and talk tracks tailored for academics, policy practitioners, and general readers -- Author working decks: Built flexible presentation frameworks (lecture, panel, keynote, and colloquium) with clear narrative arcs, data callouts, and hot-swappable sections to support varied talk formats without last-minute redesign. -- Original photography: Shot field imagery in Southeast Asia to humanize and contextualize the research; integrated art direction across marketing and presentation efforts (but not book cover design which was still handled by SUP design team). -- Campaign ops & toolkits: Packaged press kits, event promo bundles, and author-side share assets to extend reach beyond SUP channels; instituted a light KPI/measurement loop (pre-order pacing, event lift, social saves/shares) to inform weekly creative tweaks. -- Production workflows: File structures, versioning, and handoff standards so SUP teams and authors could self-serve updates while preserving craft and consistency. Outcome: The combined creative system and event support propelled the APARC series to a record-setting start at SUP, outpacing other series in title pre-orders and early sales while giving authors a repeatable, high-polish toolkit for colloquia and book talks that continues to compound visibility and demand.
