As many of you know, BusinessWeek magazine recently launched its redesign. The makeover of the 78-year-old magazine took Boston-based ad agency Modernista! 18 months to complete and drew on the talents of reporters, editors, designers, technologists, and market researchers, as well as advertising, marketing, and circulation specialists.

Changes include a cleaner overall aesthetic, more integrated global coverage, a more comprehensive news digest, and an aggregation of information that’s modeled on the Internet. One of the biggest changes, though, according to design advocate Bruce Nussbaum, is a feature section for great stories and images. Nussbaum says, “As we all know by now in design, advertising, life, connecting with people through authentic narrative is key.”

I’m sure you’ve read much of the above, since the new look has been discussed in multiple print and online venues, including the frequented UnderConsideration. But what you probably don’t know yet is that our own recently graduated (just last fall) Michael Seitz, who very well knows and appreciates the power of storytelling, was on the redesign team, working with project leader Katie Andresen. In fact, he and Katie, working from a global strategy, ultimately defined the creative direction and created the new design and the new issue of Business Week now on the newsstands around the globe.

This was a huge assignment, and quite a testament to his abilities, being that he entered the professional world less than a year ago. However, I’m no more surprised by that fact than I am about Dave Werner heading up Minor Studios or Melissa Jun being the design director for the New York Times.

I’m often asked what the difference is between Portfolio Center and other advertising and design schools. The answer is so clear to me, because I see the differences here every minute of the day, in the way our students take on the impossible. And I see it constantly in the success stories of our alumni—countless stories of unbelievable opportunities that can in no way be chalked up to luck.

Having the chance to redesign a major national publication in the first year out of Portfolio Center is amazing. What’s more amazing, though, and what I can always count on from our students, is what Michael did with that opportunity—the way he took it on, proceeded full speed, with faith enough to override his jitters. If you went to Portfolio Center, you’ve been afraid before. You know what fear feels like, and you know you can conquer it.

When Mike was a student in my History and Modernism class, his chair, the story of his chair, was about a boy trying to become a man in the process of being already stuck in the middle of life. It is the story of a person who had the courage to take a chance. It is, as Kurt Vonnegut would suggest, the story of a man-in-a-hole—a man who gets into trouble and finds a way out of it. When I share that story, and it is one we teach here across all platforms, people love it. Portfolio Center is the difference; it’s why Mike is successful today— he now owns the opportunity.

Trackback.