Dave Hunt

GOALS – The Alumni Association works with SAA students each year to create a HokieZone T-shirt. The T-shirts are sold through the Bookstore.

EXECUTION 

1. Conceptualization
   I met with students to go over their ideas for design concepts, and the students provide the text for the Top Ten. 
2. Schedule
   We worked backwards from when the T-shirts needed to be available for sale. I had a few weeks to create the design, have everyone sign off, and supply design files to the T-shirt vendor.
3. Design and Tools
   This was an original design created by me. The cannon and Lane Stadium towers both originated as images. I created these "drawn" versions in Illustrator. 

EVALUATION – Everyone was very pleased with the final design and sales were strong.

GOALS – The Alumni Association creates a new homecoming button each year. These are giveaways at reunions, homecomings, and chapter events.

EXECUTION

1. Design and Tools
   The design was my concept, and was created in Illustrator
2. Schedule
   We had around a month to create the design, finalize the project with the vendor, and have the buttons back in time for the first event where we would distribute them. 
3. Creativity 
   The design definitely reflects my aesthetic. Some of the buttons from past years had designs that were busy, text that was difficult to read, etc. 
   
4. Specs/Printing/Budget 
   The vendor provided a spec sheet for sizing and file type. This is a recurring job, so is budgeted for each year. 

EVALUATION – I'm pleased I was able to execute a design that fell in line with the branding I have been establishing at the Alumni Association.

GOALS – The Alumni Association logo was in dire need of a revision that would make it clean, elegant, modern, scalable, and easily reproduced.

EXECUTION

1. Conceptualization
   A logo for the Alumni Association had been created and rolled out before I began working as the Communications Director. In addition to a number of design problems, the logo was also a continuing source of printing and reproduction errors. The building was not in vector, the gradient on "for life" often misprinted, and it was overstuffed with text elements. I quickly began the process of revising the logo.
2. Design
   The design was done entirely by me. An internal committee had worked on the logo in the past, and so I came up with a few concepts and gave a presentation on principles of logo design - something that had never been done for the group. After meeting with the committe and then our VP, it became clear that "Virginia Tech for life" was crucial text, and a representation of the Holtzman Alumni Center clock tower had to be included in some way.
   
3. Tools 
   The logo was created in Illustrator. 
   
4. Creativity  
   Our logo goes on everything, so I viewed this project as critical. I was able to convince a committee of people to change something they had all recently decided to do, as well as work with our VP to address his concerns while also staying true to my vision of the redesign.

EVALUATION – We've had the logo in place since April 2011. The new logo has removed all the issues we had with printing the old logo. I also think the quality of the design elevates the image of the Alumni Association. The simplified logo resulted in easily iterating the logo so that we have a reverse version and a vertical version. For extremely small printing, we have a version without the clock tower art.

Eyetracking Web Usability is a fascinating book by usability experts Jakob Nielsen and Kara Pernice. It's an easy read chock-full of illustrations, great information and tips for improving websites. After introductory chapters that thoroughly explain eyetracking and the methodology behind the study that became the basis for the book, the authors explore the topics of page layout, navigation, web design elements, images, advertisements and user viewing behavior on the web. Here's just a very small sampling:

• Keep navigation naming conventions clear - don't use internal branding phrases like "offline shopping" when you mean "store"
• Bigger and fewer images are better than more and smaller images, and the ones you do use should be directly related to your content. Don't use small, low-contrast images just to break up text. These kinds of images are ignored.
• Avoid stock photography, and keep portrait backgrounds simple
• Animated and graphic ads are more likely to be ignored than simple text ads
• Ads are also ignored if they stand out too much from the visual design of the page. This has implications for internal promos you want to highlight - make them stand out too much and they'll be treated as ads and ignored

GOALS – The Ring Bus was designed to market the class ring program at Virginia Tech. We were looking for a creative and distinct way to market the program to students and raise awareness of the program to the wider university and local community.

EXECUTION

1. Conceptualization
   The project was first conceived by the Alumni Association's director of student programs, who also oversees the ring program. She became aware of a similar project for the ring program at Texas Tech and began exploring the feasability of doing something similar at Virginia Tech.
2. Schedule
   There was a great deal of administrative work on the front end, which I was not a part of, to gain approval for the project. This process began in early Summer 2011. Once the project was greenlit in September, I had a couple weeks to create the design mockups and the  full-scale design files for the vendor. This resulted in several late nights and long work weeks to finish the project on time.
3. Design
   I created an original design. The Texas Tech bus served as an early inspiration, but we did a number of different things with the design to make it our own. We were given a spec template from the bus company to show sizing and where all the cutouts and breaks in the design would fall.
4. Tools
   The bus art was created in Illustrator and Photoshop. Images had to be converted to vector so I could make them large enough for the bus. After everything was done, we had to work with the vendor, who we discovered was only capable of opening files under 1 GB and was only able to open files up to CS3 (none of this was disclosed on the front end of the project).
5. Creativity
   I'm pleased I was able to ensure the final design of the bus was clean, legible, and modern. I redesigned the Alumni Association logo in Spring 2011 and the bus was a great way to showcase our new logo. The bus was also an exciting opportunity to do something new that I hadn't done before (I've been designing long enough that this is no longer a common occurrence). I welcome and seek out opportunities to challenge myself and work on new projects.
6. Specs/Printing
   The bus wrap was first printed on paper for a fitting, then was printed on vinyl and applied to the bus by a large crew who specialize in wrapping vehicles.
7. Budget
   The project was executed within budget, with most of the funding coming through the company that manufactures and sells the class ring. I was not involved with the budgeting/funding stage of this project.
8. Distribution
   We have a three-year contract for the bus wrap with Blacksburg Transit. The bus is moved through different routes so it circulates throughout the Virginia Tech campus and the surrounding community.

EVALUATION

We saw an increase in web traffic to the class ring site this fall. The bus wrap was featured in VT News, and in the VT Magazine.