FOCUS Magazine

Editorial direction and publication design for civic storytelling

FOCUS Magazine began as vendor work.

Former Mayor Kahlil Seren brought me on before I became a full-time employee of the City of Cleveland Heights to help shape the magazine’s design, layout, and editorial presentation.

The work later continued inside the organization as my role grew from vendor to Communications Specialist to Communications Director.

FOCUS was not only a magazine layout project. It was public-facing editorial work for the city: publication design, typography, image direction, page pacing, civic storytelling, and organizing community information into a format residents could actually sit with.

The goal was to make city work more readable: neighborhood stories, public programs, institutional history, landmarks, events, departments, and community life gathered into a publication people could keep and return to.

Not all public communication is urgent. Some of it needs to be documented, designed, and given enough room to be understood.

Project details

Client: City of Cleveland Heights
Initial role: Vendor / Publication Designer
Later roles: Communications Specialist / Communications Director
Work: Magazine layout, typography, image direction, editorial pacing, civic storytelling, photography, selected writing, print-ready design
Context: Brought on by former Mayor Kahlil Seren before joining the city full-time
Result: Helped shape a public-facing publication format for civic stories, institutional memory, and community documentation

Why this mattered

FOCUS gave the city a way to tell slower, fuller stories.

A city magazine can do something a social post cannot. It can gather related pieces into one place. It can show the texture of a community instead of reducing everything to announcements.

For me, the project also marked an important shift. It began as outside creative work and became part of a larger communications role inside the city.

That progression matters because it shows the through-line of my work: design first, then structure, then the larger communication practice around it.

The point was not only to make a magazine that looked good. The point was to build a publication people would keep.

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