winchester hub
COMMUNICATION TEAM
Here you can see my work created in my First Semester of my Third Year at University of Winchester, followed my explanations and the journey for Paul Wilson.
My work at Winchester Hub as part of the Communications Team
On my third year at University I applied and got to be part of the Communication Team at Winchester Hub which involves dealing with promoting everything having to do with Social media for the volunteering Hub, as well as Marketing and Branding material.Dealing with online posts but also posters and flyers as well.
I have worked here from the start of September and I will work until the end of the University Year in May. Each project would be completed in either a period of hours, one or three days, or a week depending on when I received the brief and the deadline.
More about my role...
Being part of the communication team means that I had to present the Hub both online and outside with branding and marketing material while keeping the brand consistent. Therefore dealing with the online content posted by me and the communication team on the Social Media Channels presenting different volunteering opportunities the Hub offers, attracting future volunteers,promoting events and so on. At the same time I am helping with any marketing material such as posters and flyers.
I didn’t manage to prepare so much journey for this page as my work at the Hub many times was made in a little bit of rush as sometimes I would get one day notice and therefore having a couple of hours to start designing , sending the design wok for feedback, making the final design and then preparing the posts for the social media channels.
Furthermore as having to work in a Software such as Canvas it didn’t require me to create all the elements myself which made things easier as some deadlines where as close as a couple of hours before the work had to be finished, which is also the reason I don’t have to show you so much sketches as in the other pages of my portfolio. But as this is the way I am working for the Hub, this is exactly what I am going to present to you as well.I hope you are going to enjoy all the work I have done during this semester.
Main Software used were Canva, Adobe Photoshop, Adobe Illustrator.
In the following image you can see how working in the Software Canva looks like. In the design presented I was creating an Instagram post for the Freshers Fayre. Therefore I created the composition and used some elements that would give a more playful feel into the composition. I also tried to play with the colours yet not distancing myself from the brand too much.
The work you see is an animation as it would engage with user better than a plain picture. People seem to prefer movement more and it also attracts attention of the viewers scrolling through Instagram.
INTRODUCTION OF HALF THE 2019 MEMBERS and THEIR ROLES I WAS ASSIGNED TO CREATE :
Compositions with the same theme applied for the reason of bringing uniformity. The posts were prepared for Instagram which is why they are square. Having the same style also separates them from the other posts, making it easy to spot them in the gallery and know from which category they are from as they look nothing as the other posts, besides having the specific colours of the brand used. The user knows it makes part of the brand but they also know they are part from their own category, in this case “introduction of the new members and their roles in The Winchester Hub”.
MAIN ELEMENTS CREATED IN ADOBE ILLUSTRATOR USING THE PEN TOOL AND THE COLOURS OF THE HUB :
THE PROCESS OF CHOOSING A FINAL COMPOSITION:
OTHER DESIGN COMPOSITIONS
Even if they include all the colours that represent the brand of The Hub I was not satisfied by the way they looked. For example in image 1, I did not liked the red lines and the big flat colour forms in the background. These elements were not just competing with the main element but also aesthetically I did not like them.
In the image two I felt like the background is dividing the composition for no logical reason. I did not have two sections , just the main element title and the names of the team members and therefore it was not needed. Moreover the geometric forms felt out of context. Which is why in my final design I chose more fluid elements in the background. It makes the composition look more “friendly”and calm.
Events Promoting through social media posts across Instagram, Facebook & Twitter
THE JOURNEY OF CHOOSING A FINAL DESIGN
I tried to develop a variety of design options,not just for the committee members to choose from but also for me as I did not feel satisfied enough.
The reason why I didn’t use the orange colour of The Hub was because it was quite difficult to include that colour with the green main colour I chose for the compositions as the event is about climate and recycling . Such events usually have green colour as a main colour as you can see bellow in my research and main inspirations:
Posters and Social media posts for different Events :
My work has been done in the Software called Canva which offered me all the dimensions needed whether it was for an Instagram post, letter, posters and so on which made my work easier. It is also useful as it offers you graphic elements if you don’t have time to create all of them yourself which was very useful as all my projects had a really small time constraint of sometimes a couple of hours plus preparation of the post on different social media channels such as Instagram, Facebook, Twitter.
A very helpful tool I found was the frames tool as you can add any image inside the frame and it’s going to take that form. I will show you bellow an example:
DESIGN JOURNEY
BRIEF
This brief was given by Sam Jerkins the Link Ages Coordinator, who wanted a poster for Eastleigh Library Scheme having the following text “As part of the national Get Online Week campaign (https://uk.getonlineweek.com) we wanted to draw your attention to the Eastleigh Library Scheme that Winchester Hub runs as part of its LinkAges programme! The Eastleigh Library Scheme allows student volunteers to have one-to-one sessions with members of the elderly community, where the students help the elderly person with tech skills such as sending emails, browsing google, using Microsoft and more! If you’re a student that would like to take part in this and other activities tackling elderly isolation, apply to join the LinkAges programme by clicking here: https://www.winchesterhub.org/activities/linkages “.
The reason why I gave it a blue background instead of focusing on the orange from The Hub is because blue is usually used to represent technology. I also added hints of neon looking colour as it made me think about coding which is an element related to technology and computers. As a look back I would have tried to add some orange even though it would have been a challenge as the composition is quite busy enough. But as a result it would have represented the Hub more.
DESIGN SOLUTION
After sending my design options to the client I received the following feedback. The client loved the second poster but he wanted to make a combination from the two favourite designs and add the image with real people in the second design composition because he believes that by adding real people visuals gives people the idea of what the activity would look like. And this is what I came up with as a design solution. I used a frame offered by Canva and inserted my chosen image in it, following that I then played with it placing it across the composition so I can make sure the text is still readable even though it was a challenge.
Here you can see all my choices that influenced my final design. The committee members chose the first one as the hands graphic was a very good visual representative for the event’s subject.
Animations for Social Media and more :
Here you can see all the different compositions created for the video presenting the Hub, Alice (Co-president of the Hub) and Aaron (Co-president), as well its projects.
All of them were created in Canvas using the specific size for Instagram. I used different elements the software offers and created my own compositions while trying to always refer to the brand of the Organisation. All the colours used represent the Hub.
I also edited the video as you can see above and created posts containing their bio, everything posted in the same social media post as it was created for one goal only and therefore I didn’t consider having the need to post them all separate. The Software I used for editing the video was Adobe After Effects, in which I would include my mini animations made in Canva as it saved me a lot of time.
THE POST
Halloween Film Marathon and Face Paining events
Animation representing the countdown to the Halloween Movie Marathon day and Halloween Face Painting event hosted by the Hub in the purpose of gathering donations, happening on 31st of October. I prepared them for Instagram which is why I chose to make them on a square as a background.
New Banners for the Weekly Letter based on Holidays and special events :
All my work was chosen by the committee members based on what they thought looked best and these are their favourite banners.
HALLOWEEN
CHRISTMAS
TIME BETWEEN CHRISTMAS- NEW YEAR
NEW YEAR
The new header for this University Year for the Weekly Newsletters
The new banner was prepared in Canvas , I overlaid an orange square and made it transparent, in order to give an orange overlay to the picture as the colour represents the brand of the organisation. Following that I wanted to show through it what the Hub is about therefore I added the 3 words representing it “empowering”, “student led”, “social change”. The white line separating them is for offering more balance to the composition but also to focus the viewer on the center of the design showing the logo of the Hub.
I also added circular and line elements to add a more artistic touch to the overall composition. The circles have as well the specific orange the Hub uses in order to keep the brand consistent.
BANNERS THAT WERE NOT USED BUT THEY DO SERVE THE PURPOSE OF A DESIGN JOURNEY:
BANNERS FOR CHRISTMAS TIME OPTIONS:
BANNERS FOR THE HALLOWEEN PERIOD OF TIME:
BANNERS FOR THE NEW YEAR:
I"will"week
This is the final solution for the I will week which was edited in Adobe After Effects and the frame and outside animation in Canva . I added a frame so the content looks more enjoyable and more interesting. I chose to add different forms as for the subject I could not think of any specific graphic elements and therefore these forms are neutral for each subject yet looking creative.
I also added music in the background in order to bring more “energy”to the video which was free to use. I went on different websites and listened to around 20 different free songs until I decided that this was perfect for the video as it had not too much energy and it had the feeling of “friendliness”which I thought would make the people listen to the entire video.
This represents a part of my journey process in which I was playing around with geometric elements which I choose as the design elements as they are neutral to each subject Alice is talking about and yet by giving them colorful gradients they look very creative.
This picture represents the stage of editing the video. I received 5 different videos from which I had to cut the parts that were either unimportant or were having mistakes in the speech performed. Following that I added other little animations especially for the projects as it would look more entertaining to viewers.
Separate animations I created in Canva that I later included in the video. Having these colourful animations in the video would make it more enjoyable and fun to look at.
CHRISTMAS FAIR POSTS
As another event for raising money for the organisation, Winchester Hub organised Christmas fayre at the University Campus. I was assigned in creating count down posts and a normal post informing viewers about what the fayre offers.
VOLUNTEERS OF THE MONTH POST
OPTION I DID NOT USE
This option was not used even If I tried to keep more with the brand using this design as I was told the other design looks more colorful and interesting and the logo for each project that I added was a very smart idea. It also concentrates all elements to the center and the one on the left has all the elements placed around the composition with not a very specific main point(in terms of composition these two are quite opposites).
COMMUNICATION
Most of our communication was done on Slack. Which is also the place where I would ask for feedback from the committee members or the person who gave me the design task.
Bellow you will see some examples:
TIMELINE
The duration of these projects are starting from the beginning of September until the end of semester 1 from my third year. Each project would be done between a day or maximum a week as almost each week I would have to prepare a new post or poster.
Other design options that I created in the process, before choosing the final designs that you saw before:
MEETINGS AT THE WINCHESTER HUB FOR DISCUSSING THE FOLLOWING WEEK EVENTS AND GIVING FEEDBACK
