Sessions about Graphic Design

Starting with a clear definition of branding, we’ll move through a tried-and-true process that will lead you to a brand that resonates and ultimately delivers an enhanced reputation and image for your organization. Join us for a rousing game of “Brandoo.” We’ll then show you how to work with internal and external stakeholders in a SWOT (strengths, weaknesses, opportunities, threats) analysis to define your organization’s market niche. We’ll show how to develop information so that you can accurately express your brand through communications pieces. We’ll talk about brand attributes, brand personalities, tone of voice and overarching goals. We’ll show how to funnel all of this information into a statement that defines the goals of your communications efforts for primary audiences. The information will crystallize in a look at brand standards manuals that now guide communications for Ohio State University Extension, the Ohio Agricultural Research and Development Center, and academic programs in the College of Food, Agricultural, and Environmental Sciences. Finally, we’ll show examples of how these brand standards are applied through key communications pieces.

The barriers to building web applications have never been lower. Individuals and small teams can create, deploy and test a web application in as little as a few months, weeks or even days. This iterative process gives designers and developers a chance introduce small changes over time and constantly refine the end product. This is a look at web application development from a design and user interface point-of-view.

The new UF/IFAS Extension Web site, SolutionsForYourLife.com, was three years in the making and launched May 16, 2006. To publicize it, our team created a publicity campaign from inception to realization, including a brochure with four different covers; posters; billboards; bookmarks; a banner stand; a news release; and a news article in the UF/IFAS monthly magazine, Impact. The concept we developed for the campaign was “real answers for real life.” This publicity campaign was meant to reach not just traditional users of UF/IFAS—including livestock and crop producers, 4-H professionals and participants, horticulture professionals, and policy makers—but also new users. Our audience was defined by administrators as “everyone in the state.” The campaign’s goal was to get people to go to the portal Web site, SolutionsForYourLife.com, from where they are led to specific information on other UF/IFAS Extension sites about such topics as gardening, money management, and crop production. This session will explain the creation and design of a new Extension brand and its internal and external dissemination, as well as the specific logistics of assembling a statewide publicity campaign.

While you're in the Rockies, get a mountaintop perspective on your life and career with these simple, fun activities that allow you to tap into your creative dreams. Playing with images and words can give you some serious inspiration. And you'll take home a resource list of selected ideas from creativity, business, inspirational and writing gurus.

Do photographers see the world differently? Do other people see great pictures in situations where thought there could not possibly be anything to photograph? Recent work in the field of visual cognition is helping to explain how our brains process visual information. Why we can all look at the same thing and see different things. More importantly by knowing how our eyes and mind work together we can understand how to see pictures in the world around us and become better photographers. Understanding how viewers see and mentally process the resulting photograph completes the process of making of great images.

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In 2006 we found a new, more useful way to present a set of pruning photographs that were shot in the 1970s. We'll talk about the original shoot, show how the photos were presented in earlier publications, and demonstrate what we did to give the images new life. We're hoping this will inspire you to look at some of your own older publications and graphics in a new light.

During 2006, the University of Georgia College of Agricultural and Environmental Sciences Office of Communications expanded our role in supporting our college’s recruitment efforts. In the face of declining enrollment and shrinking degree offerings, an energetic new dean gave refreshed purpose and creative freedom in the recruitment of freshman and transfer students. A writer, marketer, graphic designer and college recruiter met to outline a plan for the development and mass distribution of new, catchy materials to target audiences. We are gaining students, and interest in the college among middle and high school students is increasing. Thanks to a directed effort to tell our story around the entire state, we are rapidly changing students’ opinions of the college. Walk away armed with a plan of action to target your key audiences, prioritize your production of printed and electronic materials and find new ways to spark interest in your programs.

Treasures in your attic? Hidden treasures are often found in the most unlikely places—and they can sometimes lead to amazing results. In 2006, Alabama Extension communicators parlayed the rediscovery of a historically significant set of New Deal era murals and the celebration of Auburn University’s sesquicentennial into a unique project that both created a touch point to our past and highlighted our present mission. We pulled the 10-painting set of murals from their dusty confines, conducted investigative research into their past, and planned events and created products to showcase and promote them. In doing so, we learned much about our organization; the life and times of the artist, John Augustus Walker of Mobile; and the significance of a fascinating project in our country’s history—the WPA Artist Project, which provided employment to artists and beauty that graced institutions and public places. Our project’s many components—news articles, lectures, posters, note cards, and exhibits—drew significant attention not only to the artwork but to Extension itself. Look around and see what hidden treasures could draw attention to your organization in fresh, unexpected ways.

NMSU Regularly engages in user testing for development of websites and educational games. In this session, they'll review the methods they use, including access to kids, consent and Instititional Review Board forms, and questioning and observation techniques.

In this session, learn to increase the power of your web sites and engage your most important audiences. We’ll review national sites, from YouTube and Wikipedia to Target and Coca-Cola. We’ll ask audience members to bring examples of successful and less-than-successful sites. After discussing what works and doesn’t, we’ll walk through a strategic process, starting with research and the discovery process, when goals and audiences are fully defined. It continues with a brand personality and promise definition. During the storyboarding examples, we’ll show the six questions that should be asked for each page of your site, and how to create an outline and detailed sitemap that gives your developers the information they need. We’ll also show how to connect your customer’s goals with technologies – when are blogs appropriate? How can you enhance your site with videos, sound or slideshows in a way that is goal oriented? How do you avoid falling for the latest bells and whistles and remain goal oriented? Finally, we’ll show examples of the process, from initial proposal forms, storyboards, and graphic design standards, to actual sites developed through this process.