Dave Hunt

There are a number of issues with this design - the color scheme is harsh, the spacing inside that yellow text box is odd, and the text at the bottom is difficult to read on a busy background, despite the inclusion of an outline on the text and copious drop shadows everywhere. I address all these concerns in the redesign, but for this post I'm going to focus on those drop shadows.

I've been doing print design long enough to remember the days when there was some work involved to add a drop shadow to an element. One of the nice things about modern design software is how easy it is to apply effects like drop shadows on the fly. But to paraphrase Jurassic Park, novice designers may be so infatuated with what they can do that they don't think about or learn what they should do.

Let's start from the top of the design and look at the three drop shadows applied.

1. The drop shadow on the large yellow and white text at the top is way to big, but it's also completely unnecessary. There's already sufficient contrast between the bright letters and the dark blue background, so the drop shadow doesn't improve readability. In fact, it might even be making that text more difficult to read. If a text effect has a neutral or negative impact on readability, the design is stronger without the effect.
2. On the yellow sticker area, we see a better application of the drop shadow effect. The drop shadow is subtle, adds depth to the design and helps it stand out better against a busy background.
3. The text below it, however, does have problems. The drop shadow is so large that it's getting away from the text it should be helping make more readable. On the small text below, the shadow is just a dark messy blur under the text.

Let's take a look at the redesign:

There's now only a drop shadow on the top left logo so it stands out better from the busy background below it, and a drop shadow on the text box and image to give a little depth. Spacing and font weights have been adjusted, the busy background image has been replaced with a solid background and an image of people enjoying a previous trip, which is stronger than generic clip art. I also modified the color scheme. I let the globe image set the color palette - the blue, warm yellow, and light green are all pulled from that image, so the colors are bright and bold, but harmonious and softened from the original.

GOALS – Principle fundraising piece for the Boynton Society at Lawrence University

EXECUTION

1. Conceptualization 
   The Boynton Society asked us to create a brochure for their fundraising campaign. I was assigned this project by the Art Director. 
2. Schedule 
   Timeframe for this project was around one month. 
3. Design and Tools
   This is an original design created by me. Photoshop was used for the images and InDesign was used for the layout. 
4. Creativity 
   The brochure was designed to be light on copy and big on hero shots of Bjorklunden, an area in northern Wisconsin owned by the university. I was very happy with how I was able to make sure the text elements had a lot of room to breathe and how the text complimented and explained the photos while not distracting from them.
5. Specs/Printing/Budget 
   Printed 4-color on a glossy text 60#. The requesting department had associated costs for this piece come out of their budget.
6. Distribution 
   Copies were delivered to the client. Print services also mailed the brochure out on their behalf.  

EVALUATION – Client was very happy with the design, and the brochure became part of a successful fundraising campaign.

GOALS – Raise awareness for a "Roommate Agreement" initiative created by Campus Life to help students get along with each other in the dorms.

EXECUTION

1. Conceptualization
   Campus Life requested the poster series. They provided text. Project was assigned to me by Art Director.
2. Schedule
   We had a couple weeks of turnaround time on the posters.
3. Design 
   The robot originated as a clipart image. I created a vector version in Illustrator, then modified him for the different posters and the three small versions on the bottom of the posters. 
4. Tools 
   Photoshop and Illustrator were used for the art. Posters were created in InDesign. 
5. Creativity 
   I've been fortunate to work on many projects that involve using my creativity, but few that include the opportunity for a little humor like this project did. I had a lot of fun playing with robots for a couple days. For the messy robot, I lifted the squiggles and dirt marks from a Charles Schultz illustration of the character Pig Pen. 
6. Specs/Printing/Budget/Distribution
   Almost all posters at Lawrence like this were printed on 80# matte, tabloid, no bleeds. Posters were printed in-house with print services on a color copier, then distributed by our student interns. Print services was in my department, so press checks were often as simple as going down to the basement floor. I had access to print on the same color copier, so I was able to check color and printing errors before sending it to print services to run the full quantity. Departments on campus that requested the posters were billed a small charge for printing expenses.

EVALUATION – The posters were a big hit with students, and suceeded in raising awareness of the Campus Life initiative for dorm roommates.

GOALS – Promote a World Music Series concert to Lawrence University and the community

EXECUTION

1. Conceptualization 
   Project was assigned to me by the Art Director. I was given an image of the artist as a starting point.
2. Schedule 
   I had a couple weeks to create the design, route it through the communications department, receive client feedback/approval, and send them to our print services staff to print. 
3. Design 
   The design is an original one created by me.
4. Design and Tools 
   I used Illustrator to create the World Music Series logo, which was then used for other concerts in the series. The original image had a similar background gradient radiating out from the artist, but the image only extended an inch or two beyond her head. I created a Photoshop image the size of the poster, created a mask around the artist, then reapplied the gradient so it filled the full space of the poster. 
5. Creativity 
   I'm really happy with how the image and gradient turned out, and love that I was able to leave so much open space around her.
6. Specs/Printing/Budget Distribution
   Posters like this at Lawrence were printed in-house in our print services area, which was part of the communications department at the university. Posters like this were typically printed on 80# matte on a color copier. Quantity varied, but was typically around 100. Student interns distributed posters around campus and the local community, in addition to supplying copies to the department that requested the poster. 

EVALUATION – The poster raised awareness of the event, and the client was very pleased with the design.

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 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.