When I joined KOIN, the station was in the middle of an ownership transition. The previous web administrator had left as soon as the sale was announced, leaving behind an aging CMS, inconsistent processes, and low expectations. My original job description was simple: keep the site running.

But I quickly discovered opportunities far beyond basic maintenance. Across the newsroom, sales, promotions, and editorial teams were all struggling with digital gaps — and no one had the bandwidth or expertise to fill them. What started as a maintenance role evolved into a creative, technical, and strategic bridge between departments at a pivotal moment for the station.

This project chronicles how I stepped into that vacuum, modernized workflows, elevated the station’s brand, and ultimately helped lead the transition to a new digital platform — one that became the model for dozens of sister stations across the country.

Bridging Departments Through Design

I began working closely with the Art Director, taking on campaign graphics, digital ads, and web visuals. This freed him to focus on high-priority broadcast work while giving me direct visibility into the station’s creative strategy.

This partnership expanded into:

• Designing complete digital ad packages for the sales team
• Creating new revenue-driving campaign concepts
• Building cohesive branding across web, social, and broadcast

Over time, I became the primary designer for many of the station’s recurring series and initiatives.

Elevating Editorial Features

The station had numerous annual and weekly editorial programs, but the web presence was flat and outdated. Instead of simply posting photos or copy, I redesigned these sections with:

• Branded templates for recurring series
• Student-athlete spotlight graphics
• Downloadable/print-ready assets for parents and schools
• Layouts that were later repurposed on-air

My digital designs began appearing in live broadcasts, eventually making me the go-to visual designer for several weekly news segments.

Representing KOIN in Community Partnerships

As my creative role grew, I was increasingly asked to represent the station in meetings with local nonprofits, government coalitions, and corporate partners.

One major example was a regional water coalition, consisting of multiple nonprofits and city representatives. I:

• Attended strategy meetings as the station’s digital and visual representative
• Designed branding and graphics for their environmental initiatives
• Built a full-featured section of our website dedicated to their seasonal updates
• Created broadcast-ready visual assets used in on-air segments

I became the central point of contact for these community efforts.

Other partnerships included collaborations with Nike, OHSU Hospital, and various Portland-area organizations. For each, I helped shape campaign identity, visual storytelling, and the digital presentation strategy, often leading both design and execution.

Launching New Sponsored & Social-Driven Content

With fresh templates and better workflows, the news team began pitching new ideas. I helped concept and build several new web/TV hybrid segments, including:

• A weekly cooking series built around local social media creators
• Sponsored content modules designed for advertiser integration
• Micro-sites for recurring seasonal features

My creative direction shaped the look, feel, and structure of these programs, expanding both audience engagement and revenue potential.

Leading the Digital Platform Transition

As ownership changed, the new parent company planned to move all stations from legacy CMS systems to WordPress. Because of my cross-departmental role and hands-on expertise, I was brought directly into the planning and design meetings with corporate leadership.

Our station became the pilot site for the transition, not because we were the largest, but because our workflows and proposals were the strongest.

I led a lot of the digital transition pieces including:

• Map legacy content structures into the new platform
• Prototype navigation, taxonomy, and layout strategies
• Define template sets used across dozens of markets
• Test early template sets
• Provide direct feedback to corporate engineering teams
• The decisions our team made became the blueprint for the nationwide rollout.

Our decisions became the standard for sister stations across the U.S.

The impact was felt across the station:

• Sales teams increased sponsor engagement with more polished campaigns.
• Producers and editors relied on the new templates and workflows I implemented.
• The Art Director began using my assets in both digital and broadcast, expanding the brand cohesively.
• Corporate leadership used our station as the standard bearer for the CMS migration.

A role that began as “just keep the website running” evolved into becoming a trusted creative strategist, technical problem-solver, and transition lead across multiple departments.

This project taught me how powerful creative initiative can be during organizational chaos. No one asked me to redesign templates, support sales, create new segments, or influence a multi-station migration, but by stepping into the gaps, I became essential to the station’s digital identity and future planning.

It reinforced a key pattern in my career: the moments that define me often start when I solve problems no one else was looking at.

• Creative Leadership
Guiding design direction across web, broadcast, and sales initiatives

• Cross-Department Collaboration
Acting as the connective tissue between art, news, engineering, and sales

• Digital Transformation
Helping architect the CMS transition used by dozens of stations

• Brand Development
Designing cohesive visual systems for recurring series and special programs

• Product Thinking
Creating templates, workflows, and systems that scaled to corporate rollout

• Self-Initiated Innovation
Identifying gaps and turning them into solutions that stuck