Reflecting on my Campus Signage Project - Part 2

     In thinking about where I wanted to do with this project, and how I could use story telling as a tool, I struggled. I do not think of myself as much of a storyteller. I do think of myself as a genuine person, and I didn't want to come up with some story for this project, I wanted my story to be natural and reflect what I do on a daily basis. I do not pay much attention to signs on campus. If I do, it is a very passive thing for me and I do not care about the elements of design, but I do care about the information conveyed. I could have  made an effort to care about the signs I saw on campus, but I thought using a sign from something I paid attention to and cared about would be more worthwhile. I also knew that doing so would energize my storytelling abilities. I chose to redesign my sorority's fall recruitment flyer. Choosing to redesign this flyer was not an easy decision for me to make, because there are a lot of different signs on campus that could benefit from a redesign. In my attempts to keep the project fun for myself and to keep the storytelling genuine, I thought this flyer was the best choice for my redesigning efforts. My sorority, Alpha Omega Epsilon, is a group that does a lot for women in STEM at NIU. I am currently the chapter president, so this is something that takes up a decent chunk of my time and I give a lot to this group. I did consider the awful "applying for scholarships just got easier" screensaver that is all over campus computers, and a couple other random flyers I saw in the library, but I wanted to do my sorority flyer because I wanted to work on something I cared about.

Original flyer design

     My sorority flyer is not at all a bad one. It's okay, it's very okay. I think the recruitment chair definitely considered our theme and what was important to communicate on a flyer. Our theme is fall, we're a professional group for women in STEM, pretty simple. What I do like is that I look at the flyer and I think "fall." What I dislike is how everything is so centered, and how everything is broken up into lines of text. I think the layout could be revamped. I also think that our name is a little washed out at the top in the leaves. I can clearly see "Fall in Love with," but I think I should more clearly be able to read the name of the group I am supposed to fall in love with!     

Design concept - I was going for a vibe

     In considering what elements I wanted to use to more clearly bring my vision to life, I considered the theme, the layout, who we are, what the events are, and contact info. I have been a part of AOE for 3 years now and I know that while our flyers are important, that many people find out about us from word of mouth, followed by social media, followed by flyers. We have also collected data from potential new members which includes the "how did you hear about us" question. Flyers are important, but maybe knowing when our events are isn't always the most important thing to communicate. I thought maybe a simply informational flyer with contact info would be beneficial. What I created with this in mind is not a complete flyer. It was more of a concept for a flyer that keeps our theme and says who we are. I do like the theme of what I created, though it is incomplete. It keeps the centralized text which I am iffy on normally, but I feel like it works in this flyer. I had blank space and I wasn't sure what to put here. But, again, it's simply a concept.

Final redesign

     I played around with piktochart and I liked this so I thought, keep it, but start over with another redesign and see where it goes. So, from there, I settled on a final redesign which retains all elements of the original in a new format. In my final redesign, I used the pumpkins to break up the blocked lines of text. I thought, describing the events we had was not a bad idea. Someone hooked on to a flyer might take more than 10 seconds to read it over if something interests them. I used the simple, black clipart of science-y images to try and make it clear who we are as a group. I attempted to avoid have all the text being centrally located on the page because I thought it was more visually appealing to do so. I also chose fonts I thought looked good with the recruitment theme. Their names also made it easier, they were cabin, cabin condensed, love ya like a sister, and cabin sketch. I think these fonts work together and add a touch of whimsy.
     Overall, had I actually made this flyer to be hung around campus, I would have cleaned up a couple things, such as the pumpkin sizes. But, I am happy with the result. I look at this and I am drawn to the bold words and the little black images make it clear that this is some sort of science group. Creativity blocks aside, I had fun with this project!