Moving Forward

I have been finding out that part of my learning experience will be making mistakes. I have made a few on occasion, and as a result I have learned from them. When I make one and then find out how to correct it, the chances of me making the same one again are lower. So, in a way, it is actually kind of beneficial, if that makes any sense.

Since my last update, I have been editing and creating a lot of college ads, as usual. However, I have also learned about what happens when a brand new ad campaign starts. When this happens, a designer (Gael Fischer) will come up with a basic layout design; sort of like a sketch. The design goes through some refinement, and when it looks good enough it will be used as the main template for all of the ads in the campaign. In other words, each ad for, say, a particular series directed at undergraduate students will look generally the same. All that really gets changed is the size of each one (depending on what it will print as), and objects on the page are adjusted accordingly.

Something that was very interesting to me was sending completed ads off to publishers. I did this with several. The college deals with a lot of publishers, and almost everything is done through email. Each publisher has different prices for taking up space on their pages (newspapers, magazines, etc.), and the college purchases some spaces and then creates the ads. When ads are finished, they are emailed to the publisher as a PDF file, which requires converting the InDesign file.

It can get pretty hectic when a lot of deadlines are piling up. Although each ad goes through a rigorous proofing process involving multiple people, the publisher might want something changed quickly after they receive the email, which was something I experienced.

The proofing process is quite interesting, too. It seems like a good example of office flow, which is another thing that I have been learning about. There are writers who write the actual text that will appear in the ad, and they need to look the ad over once the designer has a tentative one. There is also someone who makes sure the dates and locations are correct (many of the ads deal with college information sessions).

Every Empire State College ad follows the same general set of rules. The college was "branded", or given a unique identity by a design firm. The designs must adhere to certain requirements for color, fonts and font sizes, stroke weight on lines, and so on. Each section of the college has its own color, too. For example, undergraduate ads contain orange and graduate ads will have a red theme. Once all of that is set and taken care of, this is where the designer's eye comes into play. I have learned that much of the design involved in these ads is about, quite simply, what looks good to the designer.

As promised, here are some pictures from a typical adventure to the Saratoga Springs office.

The building's address on the stone wall that surrounds it.

A distant view of the building.

The main entrance.

The 1st of 3 flights of stairs that go to the 2nd floor.

My desk, 2nd floor of the building.

The walk back to my car. Autumn in Saratoga.