Graphic Design and Visual Communications
During the summer between my last year of elementary school and my first year of junior high, I taught myself HTML in order to design and create my first website. A few years later I discovered Dreamweaver and Photoshop, and and later Illustrator and InDesign. I always enjoyed expressing my creative side with these softwares, but it wasn't until entering the University of Cincinnati's College of Design, Architecture, Art and Planning that I was surrounded by seasoned and budding designers and their work, opening my eyes to the power of design.
While my dream is not to be a graphic designer, I do appreciate and realize the ability of good design to enhance everything from the built environment to reading an annual report, understanding maps, charts and graphs and even zoning codes. I believe in the "use it or lose it" philosophy, and so I contribute my capacity for design whenever I can.
- Brittany
While my dream is not to be a graphic designer, I do appreciate and realize the ability of good design to enhance everything from the built environment to reading an annual report, understanding maps, charts and graphs and even zoning codes. I believe in the "use it or lose it" philosophy, and so I contribute my capacity for design whenever I can.
- Brittany
Program Overview for a young non-profit
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In the summer of 2013, my friend and a local community development/think outside the box inspiration Dr. Beth Nagy gave me the opportunity to design the Program Overview for a newly formed non-profit, Lawn Life, and to contribute research to strengthen the program's practices. For the past several years I had been the "in house" designer at Over-the-Rhine Community Housing and tended to keep within the bounds of color/design themes I had developed. I had also focused largely on the effects of unemployment, underemployment, and low-wage jobs: the need for affordable housing. I was excited at the idea of having a blank canvas for design, and even more excited by the prospect of getting to research a program that breaks the cycle of poverty by training at-risk youth for decent wage jobs the organization creates.
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Quarterly Newsletter: increasing communication with a non-profit's supporters, donors and clients
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Over-the-Rhine Community Housing has been working tirelessly and continually to build and sustain affordable housing in Cincinnati's Over-the-Rhine neighborhood since 1978. The community development corporation was formed by a 2006 merger of ReSTOC (Race Street Tenants Organization Cooperative, founded 1978) and Over-the-Rhine Housing Network (founded 1988). Today OTRCH owns and manages approximately 400 apartments, spread out over 93 buildings in Over-the-Rhine, making the organization one of the largest property holders in the 360 acre, National Register of Historic Places neighborhood.
While the bricks and mortar development tells part of the story on its own, the quarerly newsletter is a chance to share the stories of residents, staff and volunteers as well as news from within the organization and community. While at OTRCH I had the pleasure of writing for the newsletter (as the Volunteer Coordinator, I always wrote the Volunteer section), as well as designing the newsletter with InDesign. As a non-profit with a limited budget (a sentiment shared by all non-profits I've come to know), we were careful with our printing budget, but I always liked to carry a copy of the latest newsletter with me so that I could pull it out of my bag and "show and tell" whenever OTRCH came up in conversation with a friend or an acquaintance (which was often!) If you click any of the newsletters to your left the full size versions will pop-out. |