Tori Beechum | JMC3433 - PR Publications

Assignment 2 – Direct Mailers

By Tori Beechum in Assignment 2, Direct Mailers, JMC 3433, JMC3433, Public Relations, Publications March 11, 2014

Over the last few weeks in my publications class we created direct mailers. This project was actually pretty fun, but I tell you I had no idea where I was going to start. The first thing was to identify the target audiences. For our project we had to use our school, The University of Oklahoma, and create something for an audience that could potentially be associated with OU.

I knew for sure that students would be the first target, but that is very broad so I limited the range to high school juniors. I chose to write about the educational options available at OU to help those in high school get acquainted with what the university has to offer and what they should look for when they apply next year as a senior. Here’s a look at the first direct mailer.

I wanted to stick with something that OU is known for doing design wise. The top of numerous mailers have the white ribbon bleeding off the page with The University of Oklahoma on it and they also use white horizontal lines to show what the focus is on. The only other thing I wanted to do with this mailer was stick to the colors and add a few drop shadows to the OU logos to make them stand out a bit.

For the second mailer, I chose to target parents who may have trouble supporting their child financially. I chose to write about the grants, scholarships, and Oklahoma’s Promise Commitment as available options parents can look into. Here’s a look at the second mailer.

On the design side, I wanted to make the mailer immediately target parents. I chose a photo that just capture the university and for the back I chose grid paper because I usually associate grids with math. So I figured since I was writing about financial options grids would fit well. Other than that I continued with the OU color scheme and tried to keep it simple.

I had a lot of fun doing this project. One last thing, I will say it is best to look for inspiration when designing a direct mailer. I used this mailer I found on Pinterest for inspiration.

I also used direct mailers that we’ve had in the past at OU. But yes, use tons of inspiration and figure out your audiences and narrow them as much as possible. Hope you all enjoyed this post and the mailers I created.

-Tori

Originally posted at Tori Beechum - PR Pubs

Designing for Emotion – Chapter 5 (Overcoming Obstacles)

By Tori Beechum in Chapter 5, Designing for Emotion, JMC3433, Overcoming Obstacles, PR Publications, PR Publications Weekly Blog Post from Designing With Emotion February 22, 2014

This week my class had the option to read whatever chapter they wanted in Aaron Walter’s book, Designing for Emotion, and I decided to continue where I last stopped at chapter 5. This chapter was all about overcoming obstacles that may occur when you are designing a site, app, etc. The major obstacle in most cases is trying to get people to trust in what you’re selling. I totally agree with the author when he said that most of the things we do on a day-to-day basis is go with our gut. Gut decisions can be a good idea, but at some times it may not. I think you really have to pick and choose your battles.

One example used in this chapter was the website or app, Mint.

Mint is a financial tracker that allows you to input information from whatever bank you are with and gives you tips on how to budget your money and even tracks your budget. I personally use this app on my iPhone one because my TFCU app kept crashing and I could never sign in and second because I heard how safe and reliable it was. I was a little skeptical at first because it said that you could sign up free all you needed to do was input all your bank information. Like the author said, trusting a website that says free with no gimmicks is incredibly tough. It helped that this site does have credible sources saying it’s a good app. Sources like the New York Times, Wall Street and I even saw that it’s a part of Intuit. The site and app also look very nice ad with me presence goes a long way so believing in this company wasn’t as hard as others are.

Another key point the author made was when he said that some companies will use bribery to get people coming to their site, but it’s not just about getting people to visit you site, it’s also about having them continue to visit and use the site. Dropbox was the example used and I think at first dropbox was something really cool, but overtime its lost it. I hate the fact that they tell you its free to sign up and you get to store things on a cloud, but they don’t tell you that you only get so much storage, which isn’t a lot. I choose Google Drive over Dropbox now and do so because I feel like Google is more trustworthy, has a better reputation and is able to translate over a variety of devices easily.

The last thing I took from this chapter was to continue trying if something doesn’t go as you thought. You have to continually try to make changes when you fail at something. Our gut thoughts are never always right and sometime we have to step back, ask others and go from there. Learning how to design doesn’t come overnight so it’s important to be open to change.

-Tori

Originally posted at Tori Beechum - PR Pubs

Designing for Emotion Chapter 4 – Emotional Engagement

By Tori Beechum in Aaron Walter, Chapter 4, Design Blitz, Designing for Emotion, Emotional Engagement, PR Publications, PR Publications Weekly Blog Post from Designing With Emotion February 15, 2014

This week my publications class read in Aaron Walter’s book, “Designing for Emotion,” about designing with emotional engagement. This chapter was very informative. The top three keys I took away was: surprise, anticipate and prime. What does this mean?

Well with any type of design you was your audience to be able to connect with it so your probably have added some personality to it. Now it is time to surprise your audience. It is very interesting that Walter teaches this because I think most would agree that surprises keep you wanting to come back for more to see what else is in store. It is simply very hard to resist when the surprise was pleasant.

Anticipation can be a very hard concept to apply. I think you should anticipate once you know what your audience likes, but it is very important to be careful about what you try to add to a website. Twitter is a good example of this. The makers of twitter decided there needed to be a new interface in hopes of gaining a new audience and to keep those who were already users interested. The makers made a big leap by presenting a new interface but continued to give the audience a chance to keep the old interface unlike its competitor Facebook, which makes users change to the new interface designs. I think that people respond better when given a choice and it somewhat keeps people wanting to use your services when they know they can create it however they want it.

Finally priming is when we send positive emotional experiences and people can deeply engage with it. Walter gave a great example of the mail chimp site. He said that mail chimp added the speech to the chimp and people like it because it was out of the ordinary. He compared this to the old Microsoft Word paperclip, Clippy, who would ask users midway trough their document if they needed help and etc. That got really old and mail chimp wanted their comments to be different were it was more helpful than annoying. This idea was so great, Walter said many people tweeted about it and mail chimp gained exposure because of its talking chimp.

One thing that I totally agree with it the use of open interaction. The gaming world is really capitalizing off of it because people like to be able to create their own fantasies rather than have a closed interaction that lays everything out for you. What I did not agree with was when Walter said that if you have a “when you create emotionally engaging experiences, a marketing budget is no longer necessary.” I think it’s important to have that back-up plan just in case. What if your audience doesn’t like a new step that you’ve taken and your company starts to get less attention. You have to figure out a new way to engage.

Overall this was a very interesting chapter and I think it is worth the read if you’re interested in learning about how to emotionally engage with your audiences.

-Tori

Originally posted at Tori Beechum - PR Pubs

Designing For Emotion – Chapter 3 (Personality)

By Tori Beechum in Aaron Walter, Chapter 3, Designing for Emotion, Personality, PR Publications, PR Publications Weekly Blog Post from Designing With Emotion February 8, 2014

This week my public relations publications class read chapter three of Aaron Walter’s book, Designing For Emotion. This chapter was all about adding personality to your design. Some of the best examples of this and I totally agree with Walter is Apple. Apple’s products are designed with personality. From the Mac Pro’s to the Macbook Pro’s and even the iPhone. People like them because they are personable. Everything they make can be personalized for people and they all be different. Yes the functionality is the same, but they all are synced to specific identities.

I also thought that I was neat that Walter talked about the Tapbot apps. I used this app before and only because I thought it looked cool. It was easy to use and the layout was solid. I never thought of websites being personalized, but I guess it is true. Think of it, Footlocker, Redbox, even Sony all have a login menu and once you log in things according to what you like will be offered to you first. This helps to establish personality along with dialogue menus that pop up from time-to-time to tell you about news and different features.

It’s hard to disagree with anything he said in this chapter because personality does make or break how someone will react to a design. One brand I wish the Walter would have written about is Nike. I love Nike and I feel like throughout the years Nike has continued to have the same personality. When I go to the Nike store or wear Nike gear I have that feeling like I’m stronger, athletic, more confident and a bit cocky. I get the vibe like Nike are the pioneers of athletic wear and that’s why they can step out on the limb and make shirts that have sayings on it that test people.

For example:

Some are pretty risky, but that’s Nike’s personality. I enjoyed this chapter a lot and I encourage you to check out this chapter to read about some pretty cool tactics when it comes to designing for the personality.

- Tori

Originally posted at Tori Beechum - PR Pubs

Minimalism

By Tori Beechum in Design Blitz, minimalism February 1, 2014

In this example of minimalism, Apple uses its space in a clever way. It has white space on the left side and in between the text. The two screens is what really draws your attention though.

http://www.apple.com

Originally posted at Tori Beechum - PR Pubs

Metaphor / Symbol Example

By Tori Beechum in Design Blitz, Metaphor, Symbol February 1, 2014

Here is an example of a metaphor / symbol used in graphic design. It’s the Chili’s sign. Seeing a chilli pepper makes you think of the restaurant almost automatically.

http://www.chilis.com/EN/Pages/home.aspx

Originally posted at Tori Beechum - PR Pubs

Typography

By Tori Beechum in Design Blitz, Typography February 1, 2014

Here is an example of typography. This example is from the website Mooncamp. http://www.mooncampapp.com

Originally posted at Tori Beechum - PR Pubs

Color

By Tori Beechum in color, Design Blitz February 1, 2014

Here is an example of color.

http://nclud.com

Originally posted at Tori Beechum - PR Pubs

Designing For Emotion – Chapter 2 (Designing For Humans)

By Tori Beechum in Blog, Chapter 2, Designing for Emotion, Designing For Humans, PR Publications, PR Publications Weekly Blog Post from Designing With Emotion February 1, 2014

In chapter two of the book Designing For Emotion, we studied how to design for the human eye. The author discussed many topics, but the most appealing to me was when it discussed contrast. According to webster-merriam contrast means to be different especially in a way that is very obvious and also to compare two people or things to show how they are different.

This concept of contrast I believe is probably the toughest when designing. The author, Aaron Walter, explains that contrast influences our users’ activity in simple and profound ways. He uses Tumblr as a prime example. I think that Tumblr initially has a clean and simple look that is very different than others, but I don’t think that it is completely simple for users to use because of the design it has once users sign up. The contrast on the page is actually space rather than color or photos. The user is drawn in to the small menu signup / login in page and the outer is just negative space. This type of contrast is visual rather than cognitive.

Something I disagree with in this section is the statement Donald Norman said in his book titled Emotional Design, “Attractive things make people feel good, which in turn makes them think more creatively. How does that make something easier to use? Simple, by making it easier for people to find solutions to the problems they encounter.” (Excerpt From: Aarron Walter. “Designing for Emotion.” iBooks.) I do think that when things look attractive it does make people feel more creative, but the second part of this statement doesn’t seem so true. Yes people can find the answer to problems they may encounter, but just because something has an attractive design it doesn’t mean that it will be easy to answer a problem you may have. I think having a good design makes users more apt to try your product, website, etc. but ultimately it’s all in what you are saying and ease of use.

-Tori

Originally posted at Tori Beechum - PR Pubs