Sometimes, pencil and paper works best

A current project I'm working on is an updated brochure for new staff to give to potential ministry partners who want to learn more about InterVarsity. The first part of my design process for a project like this is to think through how the text will be separated onto each spread, based on the content of the text. Once I've made a plan for that, I start sketching each spread and making an estimate of where the text will go and how it will work together with images and other elements. These sketches will be my guide as I work in the computer to actually lay this all out with the actual text and real images. Sometimes working with paper and pencil is a lot faster when you're in the initial stages of design!

Stay tuned for the final product by June or so.

An Animated Infographic

Global Urban Trek Promotional from InterVarsity twentyonehundred on Vimeo.

Last fall I shared with you an infographic I created to promote InterVarsity's Global Urban Trek program. This spring it was turned into an animated video, with the talents of one of our team's talented interns who specializes in animation. Check out the video and see if you can recognize the elements from my original infographic!

My (Ongoing) Ethnic Journey

Being a biracial couple, ethnicity is something my husband Pat and I talk about on a regular basis. We often discuss the tension we feel in InterVarsity. Although we work at the national headquarters, we don't see InterVarsity's value for multiethnicity demonstrated in very many practical ways at the office. For example, most of the leadership in the office consists of white older males, which has a large influence on how meetings are run, how people are supervised, and how decisions are made. Many ethnic minority staff feel voiceless and don't have a way to express certain painful experiences related to being an ethnic minority.

However, in recent weeks and months, many of our coworkers have started discussing these issues together. And Pat, being on the planning committee for our weekly chapel, initiated a three-week series on the topic of multiethnicity.With some of our coworkers, many of whom are also ethnic minorities like me, we worked on a series that would help the office be more aware of the dynamics that go on (such as white privilege), as well as encourage our coworkers to engage in this issue and pursue something better together.

For the second week of the series, we planned a panel discussion, and I was one of three ethnic minority staff who spoke about our experience at the office. We felt very vulnerable sharing some painful and hard things, but I was encouraged by the response from others who said thank you and who followed up with questions and conversation.

Since Pat and I don't often work together, we were energized to collaborate on this project. We hope it will bear fruit in the coming days, weeks, months, and years.

You can listen to the panel here
(about 45 minutes long). 

The other two coworkers on the panel are David Hui and Haley Compean, facilitated by Lisa Rieck.

I would love to hear your thoughts and feedback if you do get a chance to listen to this!

Please continue to pray for InterVarsity. Although we have come a long way in making our organization more welcoming and inclusive to all ethnicities, we still have a lot to learn. May God give us grace as well as conviction to see His kingdom come in its fullness.

Branding Dilemmas

I'm so sorry it's been a LONG time (four months!) since I have blogged. I got out of the rhythm when I was planning my wedding, and just have not stayed on top of everything since getting married!

I'm working on a number of various things but one larger, more nebulous project that's on my plate has been to work towards building a strong brand for InterVarsity. Branding involves a lot of things that go beyond just a good logo, but as a designer, I am focusing on the visual part of our brand, which does involve our logo and other visual markers of who we are.

To show the scope of what we are dealing with, I did a little research on social media to assess where InterVarsity was at with our brand. I grabbed the logos or images being used by all of our InterVarsity chapters all over the country. Then I compared that with the images being used by chapters of two other large campus ministries - Cru (formerly Campus Crusade for Christ) and the Navigators.

Here's what I found. (click on images to view bigger)

Cru:

Navigators:

InterVarsity:

As you can see, InterVarsity has the least consistency across our various chapters' presence on social media. Contrasting it with Cru, which has extremely consistent branding, and Navs, which is less consistent but at least has a recognizable shape/logo that exists across its chapters, I realize that our task is a large one. Something that's particularly challenging for us is that InterVarsity's logo is long and thin:

It is not conducive to the square shape that social media is moving towards. In fact, our current solution for the national InterVarsity Facebook and Twitter accounts is probably not super ideal:

So, I've got a big task ahead! Please pray that God would provide wisdom and insight into how to solve these issues, and that those who hold influence and power in our ministry would be on board with finding good solutions, allowing me to help increase our brand recognition, and hopefully as a result, our impact on campus.

What if we chose what Jesus chose?

Infographics are a type of project I particularly enjoy. I love the challenge of organizing information in a visually elegant way to communicate something. The weekly infographics I work on usually have some element of humor or fun, but once in a while I also get to work on more "serious" infographics.

Recently I worked with Marissa, who leads InterVarsity's Global Urban Trek program, to create an infographic that communicates the need for ministry in slum communities, the mission of what the Trek does, and the results of how God works through the Trek. The main message of the piece challenges readers to consider the life that Jesus chose - a life of poverty.

This was particularly energizing project to work on. Working with Marissa was great because she gave me freedom to use my design expertise (some clients can be a lot more picky and try to tell me how to design something, which isn't very helpful.) Marissa began by telling me her overall vision and hope for the piece, after which I did some of my own research and sketching. Our collaboration created something that both of us are very excited about. The hope is that this infographic will be useful both in recruiting students to the Trek, and also casting vision to potential financial ministry partners.

The color scheme uses the 'earthiest' tones in our color palette, but I also included blue for some brightness.

The printed version features an image of a slum community in Manila on the cover.

Partnering with Staff: Prayer Booklet

One of the things I love about my job is getting to work with other staff to create useful resources for campus ministry. Recently I teamed up with the staff at Ohio State University to design a prayer book for their students. This book contains guided morning, evening and night prayers, as well as helpful ways for students to combine personal with mission-focused prayer.

The original design was very simple (not bad at all, actually), but when the staff at Ohio State came to me asking for help, I was excited to improve upon what was already a great resource.

before and after - prayer booklet cover

One way I helped improve the design was to think about how the information in the booklet was organized and try to figure how to make it as easy to use as possible. In the original booklet, there is a Psalm-reading calendar chart that takes you through the entire book of Psalms three times in a year. The chart was three pages long and somewhere in the middle of the booklet.

original chart for Psalms reading

In my design process, I thought that if someone really wanted to access this chart on a daily basis, it would need to be easier to find and easier to read. So I decided to move it to the back of the booklet and consolidate it into one page.

my redesign of the Psalms reading chart

Additionally, I added a bolder header row and alternated the rows with white and gray so it would be easy to read across each line. All of these elements are what I hope to be improvements in making the chart easier to use.

What's great about this project is that I not only provided a service to the staff and students at Ohio State, but I also gave them a platform in making this resource more widely available. Since twentyonehundred has the means to order larger quantities of things, we decided to publicize the resource for others to use and make them available on our InterVarsity national online store. Within a couple months our first order of 1,000 ran out. We're now on our second print run and I've heard they're going fast!

Although I don't work directly with students, it excites me to know that my design work is helping them learn how to pray and practice it in their daily lives. I get to influence students to interact with God more regularly and more deeply. What a privilege!

A story about a blue cup

One of our biggest projects of the past few years was the Red Cup campaign, an evangelistic project that engages passersby with the question "What are you thirsty for?" and the familiar image of the red Solo cup used at many college parties. However, on some campuses and for some students, it's a blue cup that's impacting lives.

My friend Carole, on staff with InterVarsity's International Student Ministry at the University of Michigan recently included this story in her update:

"Last year, Carla stopped by our information table and picked up a blue cup. These cups have 'welcome' written on them in many languages. At the end of the year, Carla said 'something that really caught my attention about ICF was the blue cup... The fact that it had "SELAMAT DATANG" on it was one of the things that made me feel even more welcome, as in the first few days, some people I met didn’t even know where Indonesia was or what it was.' Carla was changed throughout the year and came to know God more, and her initial contact with us was a blue cup."

I'm thankful to see how my design work, in partnership with the work of staff on campuses, is transforming the lives of students!