Caroline Rodda

Table of Contents:

• Research
• Concepts
• Roughs
• Semi-comps
• An Ending & A Beginning
• October 8th
• October 15th
• October 22nd
• November 4th
• SMAD Day & Conclusion

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Research

The first step to developing the campaign for SMAD 332 was to research the SMAD Day event in order to construct a creative brief that would later become the basis for the design strategy.

I began by collecting all the information and images I could find from previous SMAD Day campaigns, starting with 2017. I created a ‘brain dump’ on Mural so that I could begin brainstorming the types of deliverables Mastan and I could develop. Within the constraints of developing a print, social, and digital deliverable, we were encouraged to brainstorm a variety of ways we could implement the campaign.

After all the research and creative brief were complete, Mastan and I had decided on developing the deliverables of a poster, merchandise (shirts, stickers), social media posts, webpage banners, and TV monitor slides. Additionally, based on research about the target audience and objectives of the event, we developed a strategy for the campaign.

Our strategy for the campaign was to bring awareness to the event, motivate individuals to attend, and impress with campaign visuals. The central focus of the theme was school and networking, in hopes of drawing in alumni and current students, from any concentration, that came across a campaign deliverable.

Concepts

After the brief and strategy were constructed, it was time to begin gathering inspiration for the visual styling of the campaign. Mastan and I shared a Pinterest board to gather visual inspiration that became the basis for four distinct concepts. Of the four, we each took two concepts to separately develop further.

After selecting inspiration, color palette, and typefaces for each concept, I created a moodboard for each. Then, I developed sketches for each campaign’s deliverables, including a social, digital, and print deliverable.

Roughs

After receiving peer reviews and meeting with our professor to discuss our two individual concepts, Mastan and I began developing the roughs for our separate campaigns. I had chosen to further my collage-inspired campaign because I felt more confident executing the idea and overall was excited to start developing the actual deliverables.

After finding a variety of free creative media while looking for filmstrips, including poster and paper textures and a pack of tape brush presets for Photoshop, I began working on my roughs. The first thing I developed was the cut-out style letters for the SMAD Day branding. I had experimented with free media magazine letters I found online, but the variety, or lack thereof, of colors and shapes they came in limited what I could do.

Instead, I decided to use Adobe Illustrator’s pen tool to make the uneven cutout shape of the letters, then an overlay of a paper texture to add dimension. I also added a drop shadow to the letters, and every additional ‘sticker’ I added, to give dimension and a realistic collage look.

After developing the logo, the first rough I created was the social media post. I started working in Adobe Photoshop on a square canvas because I knew it would end up working for most social media channels. I first created the background of the post by layering the corkboard with repeated “SMAD DAY” text under free media rips and a paper texture I had found. To create a ripped effect, I used a clipping mask to only show the white paper overlay between the rips and added a drop effect to the rips themselves for dimension.

The vibrant sticky note featured was a product of me trying to create a sticker in Photoshop, struggling, and deciding it worked better as a sticky note. After adding a ‘tape’ brush effect and a drop shadow, the note had more dimension and everything started to feel more like a cohesive collage, especially when coupled with the ripped background and added filmstrips.

The typeface I had chosen from Adobe Fonts while developing my original concepts. I felt it fit the graphic poster-inspired look I had developed in the concept and had a whole type family available on Adobe, which is what truly influenced my decision. I worked in all my mandatories, including the event date, time, location, and SMAD sponsorship logo, using the different type styles and with the overall visual hierarchy in mind.

After creating my social post, I adapted the rough to being a print deliverable, a poster, and a digital deliverable, an email banner. For the email banner, I used another free media composition notebook texture I had found to create a school-inspired notebook look. I then mocked up all the deliverables in their respective contexts to be turned in for my roughs.

Semi-comps

For our semi-comps, we were tasked with creating the final pitch of our campaign and deliverables to be shown to the SMAD Day committee panel. At this point, Mastan and I were still developing separate campaigns, so we met with our professor to discuss which campaign we should choose to submit. Her suggestion was to combine our campaigns to create the vivid and playful designs that ended up becoming the basis for the final SMAD Day campaign. Using the background and layout I had created and the vibrant gradient and stickers Mastan had developed, we developed our final client pitch.

For the pitch, we were required to include the SMAD Day mark and the prototype for each platform we had developed, as well as research from our creative brief and design strategy and mockups to display the prototypes in context. The final designs, mark, and pitch were all turned in via a discussion thread in order for our classmates to peer review the work we had done.

After an in-class critiquing session, Professor Hooker announced to us that she had already shown the pitches to the panel and that they had selected one of our campaigns to be implemented. After a pause, the slide projected on the board behind her changed, now displaying the semi-comp email banner from our campaign. I was stunned, turning to Mastan who sat next to me. Even with a mask on, I could tell she was smiling.

As Professor Hooker congratulated us and our classmates around the room began applauding, I remember thinking two things. One, that I couldn’t believe our campaign had actually been chosen, and two, what was going to come next?

An Ending & A Beginning

By October 3rd at 9:04 pm, the final deliverables and client pitch, which had been tweaked based on feedback from both the critique and peer reviews, had been turned in. While my work on the project had technically finished, my work on implementing the campaign for SMAD Day had just begun.

The first step was to meet with Elisabeth Kvernen, SMAD professor and the person in charge of all the SMAD social media channels. At our first meeting, Mastan, Elisabeth, and I discussed how we would implement the campaign across all platforms and which deliverables would be developed. With the actual SMAD Day event just over a month away, we began working.

Each week, we would meet to discuss the schedule of delegated deliverables divided into weekly deadlines, as well as any revisions required of work we had already turned in. Since the implementation of our campaign also served as Mastan and I’s second major project in Professor Hooker’s class, our progress was documented on a Google Doc that listed exactly what was being developed and by whom to assist with her final grading.

October 8th

My first set of deliverables included the revised version of the poster I had developed, SMAD Day reminder cards to be passed out in class visits, a web banner, a set of schedule-focused Instagram stories.

Since I had already pretty much finished developing the poster and web banner, I only had to create the visit card and Instagram stories. Originally the visit card was going to be a flyer, but after further consideration, Mastan, Elisabeth, and I decided that a business-sized card would be more effective. Our logic was that while something like a flyer would likely be discarded by the recipient, the small size of a business card would be easier to stow away and therefore be kept. The QR code was added to link directly to the registration page for students.

The stories were created specifically with Instagram in mind as the target audience, which includes students and millennials, would be most likely to see the posts on that platform. The ‘highlight’ feature on Instagram allowed for the stories to be saved to the SMAD Instagram profile, which meant they could be more information-heavy than a normal post since the viewer could go back and rewatch.

At the same time, Mastan was developing name badges, a sticker pack that would be distributed to attendees at the event, a TV monitor slide, and a social media post describing the benefits of the event.

October 15th

For this deadline, my deliverables included designing the event schedule, email graphic for virtual attendance options, two testimonial posts for a variety of social platforms, and updating the web banner to have the date and website URL.

To develop the schedule, I decided to play off the school theme of the campaign and use lined paper as the background of my design. Using the graphics and general style of the other deliverables as a guide, I tried to create a schedule that was cohesive with the other deliverables, but that still worked well on its own.

For the testimonials, I contacted fellow student Olivia Kasidiaris and alum and original SMAD Day campaign creator Abigail Mumma to get a quote on what SMAD Day means to them. Since the testimonials would be going on multiple of the SMAD social media platforms, including Twitter, Instagram, LinkedIn, and Facebook, I created posts with variations for each. I also wrote suggested captions to go with each post that included the full testimonials.

At the same time, Mastan was developing labels for the attendees’ folders, sticker sheets by concentration, two event graphics for different social platforms, and supporting graphics for the SMAD website.

October 22nd

For this deadline, my deliverables included three Zoom backgrounds for virtual attendance, a two-week countdown post for socials, an Instagram story promoting a resume workshop, and beginning to develop the wayfinding for the event.

To create the Zoom backgrounds, I went for a simple design that would allow for the background to be functional but still cohesive and recognizable within the campaign.

For the countdown post and Instagram story, I really considered the way the viewer’s eye would flow through the design. I also tried to balance the hierarchy of information to be logical and easy to follow yet still be an eye-catching design.

The wayfinding for the event proved to be my most challenging assignment because of how out of my realm of comfort it was. I had never created wayfinding or anything of the like before. To begin, I knew I would need to get a feel for the type of signs that would be necessary. My progress started during this week when Mastan and I went and walked through the buildings where SMAD Day would be taking place. As we walked around, I took notes on where I thought signs should be, and what type of sign.

From my notes, I created four different sign concepts:

• Hallway directional signs
• Welcome signs for each building
• Yard signs to be placed outside the buildings
• Signs that listed which rooms are on which floor to be placed inside elevators, stairs

After suggestions from Elisabeth and Professor Hooker, I added two more:

• Sign directing attendees to tent outside, details about lunch and after-lunch mixer event
• Room specific signs with timing for each event

During this week, Mastan developed a map for the attendees, four different promotional TV slides, a social post promoting lunch at SMAD Day, and a workshop promotional social post.

On October 29th, with SMAD Day just one week away, Mastan and I joined a team of other SMAD student and faculty volunteers to do prep work for the event. We assembled the attendee folders and their contents, which were organized by concentration and separated into alumni and students, constructed the name tags and yard signs, and continued cutting out the sticker sheets that went into each folder. After a couple of hours, we had finished assembling all the folders and name tags, leaving just the wayfinding to be done before the event.

November 4th

For this deadline, my deliverables included revising/finalizing wayfinding, a one-week and one-day countdown post for all social platforms, and three days, two days, and a one-day countdown story for Instagram.

With the actual SMAD Day event being the next day, Mastan, Elisabeth, and I met a final time to put up all the wayfinding I had created. Since the implementation of the SMAD Day campaign counted as my second project for Professor Hooker’s class, my final assignment to turn in was a collection of all my deliverables “in the wild”. For my print deliverables, that included all the wayfinding that we placed into Harrison and Darcus Johnson Halls.

SMAD Day & Conclusion