Creative Resources Overview
Transcript
Cassandra Nathan:
All right, good afternoon, everyone. Thank you, guys, so much for joining. This is WeConnect Virtual Communications Lab, and we are joined by Columbia Creative. They're going to be presenting a writing presentation around the creative resources that is made available to the communicators at Columbia University. We are extremely excited. This is kind of like Virtual Communications Lab reprised, if you will. We took a little bit of a break, but we are back strong. It seems like Columbia Creative resources is a fan favorite; everyone wants to know more about Columbia Creative: the resources that is available to them, and what you guys actually do.
So everyone who is pouring who's coming in, please feel free to put yourself on mute. We may even ask—for the sake of the presentation—there's a possibility if we see a glitch, I may ask for everyone to also stop their video, as that tends to help with the flow for videos when we're sharing presentations. So if there are no problems and no issues, all goes well, but just a heads up, I may ask for that.
So please put yourself on mute, and in the chat box if you would kindly share your full name, your department, your email address, that would be lovely. I'm going to put myself on mute and give you guys an opportunity to each introduce yourselves and, you know, of course you guys are part of Columbia Creative but your title, and we’ll enjoy the presentation.
Then, I'll have a few questions, great questions, for Columbia Creative, and then following that we will open it up to the larger audience for Q&A. So if you have your questions ready or you want to take some notes, this would be a great time to get yourself prepared for that because we are going to give some time at the end for you guys to interact with Marisol, Junie, or Geoffrey, yourself, to ask the questions, your burning questions.
So thank you, guys, so much for agreeing to do this especially, so shortly after Commencement. I know it's been a wild ride, but I’m really excited and I cannot wait to hear more about Columbia Creative. Take it away.
[Second slide: Individual Introductions]
Junie Lee:
Thanks, Cassandra. I'm looking down a couple of the names, so some of you might have seen bits and pieces of this presentation at the very beginning already, so I apologize for the repetition. But for those who have not seen it, I appreciate Cassandra's giving us this venue to introduce ourselves and to the wider community. My name is Junie Lee; I'm the Director of Creative Services at Columbia Creative.
Marisol Estevez:
And I'm Marisol Estevez, and I'm the Advertising Manager.
Geoffrey:
And I'm Geoffrey, Creative Strategist.
[Third slide: Columbia Creative Introduction]
Junie:
As a quick introduction for those who've never heard of us, is Columbia Creative is the central office for the Columbia University's visual communications. We design work for all schools, institutes, departments over all the different campuses of the university. My team consists of arts directors and designers, account managers, editorial, and advertising. You know, we are pretty much the in-house design group for the university. You know, we are part of the office of Communications and Public Affairs, in which case another one of our roles is to steward the visual identity guidelines and the university brand. Our primary goal as an office is to tell the Columbia story to the outside world. You know, we partner with various divisions to create communications that we try to help reach their targeted audiences to see who they want to tell their story to.
We know that the university is very siloed, and there's a lot of different divisions, and we know that each one is unique, and everyone has a unique voice. And one of our biggest goals is to capture that voice for each division in their communications while still maintaining the Columbia mission and the brand integrity.
Go on, next slide, Geoff. Thank you.
[Fourth slide: Highest quality of design and client services]
There is some thoughts of why people come to us to do their communications and, you know, I'm really proud of the team that we have, that they have the highest quality design and client services; we have account managers with infinite patience who are able to traffic a job through, you know, all the different divisions.
We really pride ourselves on the partnership we have with the different schools, that we work together with you to get your mission together; we strategize at the beginning to basically know who you're trying to reach, what you're trying to say, and what's the best way to get there.
You know, the beauty of it—in-house department of any large organization—is that we have an ingrained institutional knowledge. You know, we all know Columbia’s ins and outs, ups and downs, good and bad, and we're here to be able to focus on showing the world your story.
You know, we're also a full service shop so come to us; we design, we produce, we distribute. And most importantly, that we are Columbia, so we're part of you, so your successes are definitely our successes. The only reason we exist is to make you look good, and so that's our role here.
Next slide.
[Fifth slide: Storytelling through Design, Illustration, Photography, Illustration, Video, and Information Graphics]
Okay, I would just want to go through some samples and examples of some of our work that we do. In the last year, through the pandemic, you know, a lot of our work has shifted, and we have to be a little bit more agile in our offerings.
Can you go to the next slide, Geoff?
[Sixth slide: Commencement photos and GIFs]
One of the things that you might have seen us recently is kind of the work that we did for Commencement. We're trying to bring a little bit more excitement into the celebrations that were all virtual. So we worked with the Commencement team, and worked with Public Affairs and the different schools, and we created, you know, Facebook filters, and animations, stickers, and GIPHYs for social. If you are on campus, there are a bunch of College Walk posters we produced, and designed grad kits that were sent out to the graduates that were just to kind of up the spirits and try to make it more Insta-ready.
Next slide, please.
[Seventh slide: COVID posters]
Another thing you've probably seen, if you all have been on campus, or have been looking online, is that we've been working with Facilities and with Columbia Health and also with Public Affairs to kind of get the COVID-19 word out. We designed a bunch of signage for digital signs for social, for websites. You know, all so we get the messaging of staying healthy on campus.
Next slide.
[Eighth slide: Vote]
Another one of the things we did want more of is creating content for social because of what's been going on. This is something that we worked with Acacia and her team for helping out with the Columbia votes messaging, you know, with GIPHY stickers. We created elements and assets for social, including, like, short animation to start at the videos and also kind of mailer kits for swag for incentive to join the Columbia votes initiative.
Next slide, please.
[Ninth slide: Keep Columbia Healthy]
I feel like I saw the digital screens are social on campus, you know, the Columbia Stay Healthy, Go Green. We try to make it a little bit more friendly, and having the iconography of Alma and Rory and, you know, doing Banner ads for the Spec. You saw them online, on social, so you know that's kind of some of the few projects that we've been doing lately.
I'm going to jump it over to Geoff who is going to talk a little bit about video work.
[Tenth slide: Black screen]
Geoffrey:
Yeah thanks, Junie. So yeah, one of the things we noticed during the pandemic, as I'm sure all of us did, is just being adaptable to the new environment and certain areas of our services. We built it up during the last year just because of the kind of new digital environment, so we have a few video examples. I actually saw a few colleagues on the call who we worked with. We have an example, first, of actually a clip from 10 different videos that we did for an NIH funded research program called “All of Us.” I'll play a little bit of that right now.
[Video starts playing. Music.]
Woman from video:
Well I think that what's unique and important about the All of Us research program is that, you know, there are treatments and medications that don't work for everyone, and this program is really trying to find out why.
[Video clip ends]
Geoffrey:
So this again an example– You have to pardon it's a little bit glitchy sometimes when we do a Zoom screen share of video, but you can still get the gist of it. This one was done before the pandemic. Since then we've done two additional videos. During the heat of the pandemic, we actually had to get a studio in Long Island City to produce two of these.
[Eleventh slide: Blue screen]
And then the second examples—for the Barnard gala, they actually had to cancel it in 2020 due to the pandemic—and just completed it a little while ago for coming back in 2021. So, this is an example of animation that we do, and having a voiceover artist come in, and we edit it together, and here's the final product or at least a clip of it.
[Second video starts playing]
Voiceover (older woman):
The Barnard network transcends generations and geography, and while our community has always been strong, this year tested all of us in ways that inspired heartening connections and a bold new level of resilience and innovation. When the decision was made to go virtual for the fall semester, Barnard launched the Alumnae Circles program to connect students with the alumnae network, and each other, through more than a hundred circles based on region, industry, affinity, and identity. Alumnae and students have transcended physical distance to share the Barnard spirit.
[Video clip ends]
Geoffrey:
Yeah, so you can kind of get a sense of how that might come together. That was actually not a professional voiceover artist, that was actually an alumna who came in, and we got the recording from her.
And then the last example here:
[Twelfth slide: Presidential Awards video. The video starts playing]
Voiceover (woman):
Presidential awards for outstanding teaching are given to Columbia faculty and graduate student instructors who have significantly influenced the intellectual development of university students. With deepest admiration, we recognize these educators selected by the campus community for this honor for their sustained excellence in teaching and remarkable dedication. This year's recipients are Denise Cruz, Associate Professor of English and Comparative Literature, Department of English and Comparative Literature, Faculty of Arts and Sciences.
[Video clip ends.]
[Thirteenth slide: Cartoon lion]
Geoffrey:
So that's kind of an example of quite a series of videos we did. I saw Jen on the call; we did one for mentoring, service, awards, faculty mentorship. So, we've done Zoom-based productions for trustees, for Columbia Neighbors, so quite a range, and I didn't envision before the pandemic just how useful some of that communication could be, so that's definitely a resource for you.
This is an example done for Alumni and Development where we can sort of chart the progress of the Columbia Commitment Campaign, and you can kind of see as the animation plays–
[Animation is playing: lion leaps from column to column]
–you know, just showing the progress at different stages, and then also Alumni Development colleagues would receive an email. We designed a medal that we produced and could be sent to different groups as they reach their milestones.
Junie?
[Fourteenth slide: Columbia Science cover]
Junie:
We just pulled some examples of the traditional print work that we've actually accomplished with different reports and different strategic reports that we've done for different offices. Annual reports is still something we love doing, and we do quite a bit of. We also continue on with–
Done, next slide
[Slide changes: Magazine article titled “Combating Corruption in Russia”]
–you know, magazine design, which is one of our favorites. We love doing the layouts. We love doing that, putting these narratives together. I'm gonna–
Next slide.
[Slide changes: Two open magazines, Elizabeth Hillman & Discovery + Innovation]
–you know, doing the photoshop, you know, the photo shoots to actually putting the layouts in place.
[Slide changes: Columbia Law School folders]
This is some older pieces that we've done for admissions.
Next slide.
[Slide changes: Class of 2024 Profile]
This is for the college.
[Slide changes: Observatory photo]
Print is something that we haven't done as we're– We still have a strong print. You know, in the last year we have obviously not seen as much. We're hoping that there's going to be a little bit more of a hybrid that's going to happen. Coming with live events going on, that we're going to be able to do a kind of campaign that's going to combine the social and the online and the digital with the print assets of it.
Let me go back to Geoff right now and talk little about photography.
Geoffrey:
Yeah, that's great, yeah, and just to say on that point too, I mean generally, when we first meet with an office or a few colleagues about their communication project, we discuss some of those considerations. And sometimes, you know, there's a place for a printed invite, sometimes there's a place for a PDF, so that you sort of time stamp the publication, and people can kind of refer back to it years down the road to see what your goals were and maybe a strategic plan. So yeah, we just kind of advocate for whatever medium best suits those communication goals.
This is an example of some photography, so this one actually– We’ll tend to try to find the right photographer for the job. This one was Pietro Radinski, and just really capturing something beautiful with available light. Sometimes we'll also bring in photographers who will come in with a full set of studio equipment, and we'll actually set up a studio.
Different schools and colleges have different communication department sizes, and sometimes we work with a singular communications person who represents that school or office. Other times, maybe the school has several designers, and in those cases we've maybe set up a photo shoot for them and let them art direct it. So, really just here to be as helpful as we can and that really varies from school to school.
[Slide changes: Jigsaw puzzle]
Here's an example of some illustration of, you know, putting that together–
[Slide changes: Jigsaw Puzzle image in Columbia News article]
–and then the final placement here on Columbia News to sort of, you know, draw you in to read the article.
[Slide changes: Cartoon buildings on a street]
Another example of illustration here.
[Slide changes: Pregnant woman on SIPA Magazine cover]
And this was one for SIPA Magazine where they, right now, are doing their design internally but helping them out with illustration for their cover story.
[Slide changes: The Pulitzer Prizes]
And then also we do events. Usually it's like an anniversary event, you know, sometimes street banners, and then in this case it was for the Pulitzer Prize when they had their last administrator come in, helping with podium and signage and gobo lights you'll see on the wall there in Low Memorial Library.
[Slide changes: Storytelling through Advertising and Marketing]
And then Marisol is going to talk to us about storytelling through advertising and marketing.
Marisol:
Thank you, Geoffrey.
[Slide changes: Display & Digital Ads]
So, good afternoon, everyone. I'll be giving an insight of what services we offer as an in-house ad agency for the university. We strategize and make recommendations for your program or event to measure the effectiveness increasing the department's return on investment. Those recommendations can consist of display ads or digital banner ads.
Next slide, please.
[Slide changes: Manhattanville]
Here we have an example of a full page ad that we did for Manhattanville, on the left, and two digital banner ads, on the right.
Next slide.
[Slide changes: Environmental ads]
Depending on your budget, an environmental ad buy could be an option. Subway car ads, which are the large ads that are at the top of the subway cars by the handrails; bus shelter ads are the posters; Full Turnstile Denomination, which is the entire turnstile area; LinkNYC, they're above ground almost on every other corner; Digital Urban Panels are the digital screens which rotate ads that are shown as you're walking down the stairs to the subway station; and street banners. Here we have, on the left, example of a LinkNYC ad, and on the right we have a street banner ad.
[Slide changes: Subway turnstiles]
[Slide changes: All of Us ad]
Next we have– A mailing list can be purchased for direct mail marketing campaigns targeted by zip code, based on demographic areas. We recently had a project to promote a medical research program. The direct mailing approach was very effective for them. Here we have a postcard that we printed for the outreach of zip codes for surrounding areas of the hospitals. Their goal was to increase the number of enrolled participants.
Next slide, please.
[Slide changes: Mailing list]
We also purchase email lists, such as GRE, GMAT, and TOEFL for potential students to increase enrollment. Basically, by selecting certain criterias and specific score rangings, a list is created and sent to departments in an Excel file. Most departments send out these email blasts themselves, but it is a service that our office could potentially provide as well.
Last, we have job recruitment ads. These ads are posted in roughly about three days, but they can be posted sooner, and we help facilitate the websites that these ads appear in. And the process is that the ad will go through our editorial department for grammatical errors, and then we will confirm that there is a live URL link embedded in the ad content and an affirmative action statement. And once the ad goes live, we will follow up with the URL of the live posting. Many times, departments must show proof that the ads were posted externally, and the URL can always serve as your proof. So that's pretty much Columbia Ad in a nutshell.
[Slide changes: Storytelling through Branding and Brand Management]
Now, I'm going to turn it back over to Geoffrey.
Geoffrey:
Thanks, Marisol. So, another section where to touch base on is storytelling through branding and brand management. So, as I'm sure you’re all aware, Columbia is a pretty decentralized university, so we operate in some ways like an in-house department and in other ways like a, you know, small design firm kind of a thing.
So, with regard to brand management, we actually will produce trademarks that are university branded, without any charge, usually within a couple business days. Sometimes there's a little bit of flexibility in terms of style choices, and if you're part of the Medical Center we might refer you up there.
And then for special projects, we would love to just have a meeting and just discuss what your communication goals are, and if it ends up being something that we can help with, we would then open a job for that. And we do recover costs for those sorts of jobs.
[Slide changes: SIPA; Sustainable Columbia]
So, the few examples we have. First, we include an example of the SIPA 70th anniversary. That's just kind of representative of a lot of style guides. We'll do anniversary-related. And then below that, you'll see Sustainable Columbia. For both the, you know, anniversary trademark, or in that case special trademark, with the brand guidelines on the left.
[Slide changes: Columbia brands]
And then this is an example– So, back in 2018 we launched the new branding for the Medical Center and the four colleges and schools with Kristen Francesco and the communications team up at CUIMC Communications. So, we worked very closely to develop the brand architecture that you can kind of see represented on the left, at least the basic components, and then the letterhead ensemble, and color schemes, street signs, and that sort of thing, and then helped launch a couple years back.
So from this point on, now, we've– Actually, Print Services handles the letterhead ensemble if people need letterhead printed from that point on, and CUIMC Communications will help with any new trademarks that are generated.
[Slide changes: Other Resources]
Junie?
Junie:
Okay, all right.
[Slide changes: Office of Public Affairs Video News Team]
So that pretty much wraps up a little bit of what we do, and I just kind of wanted to touch base on the other assets, other resources, that are on campus for everybody. A great one is Robert Branch and his video team. Robert Branch makes videos for the Columbia News site and for—which are posted on the news site and also on the Columbia platform—for Youtube and Facebook. You know, they focus on video stories that are strategic importance to the university, so primarily if you have something that is within the strategic mission for what's going on at the university now, I recommend pitching him, and see whether or not he could create a video for you.
You know, we are happy to do video work for you, also. This is just one other resource that you could have. Also their department also, you know, helps us and provides us with video content for stock imagery of the university that we incorporated to our videos and we edit out, also.
Okay next slide.
[Slide changes: University Photographer: Eileen Barosso]
Eileen Barosso, as I'm sure most of you know, is a university photographer. You know, we work with a lot of different photographers. Eileen is definitely someone whose work you've seen everywhere. She has a lot of great campus shots, a lot of great portraiture, and she's a huge asset, and so if you need some work done that's immediate and of high quality also, she's another resource to touch base with.
[Slide changes: Print Services]
Print Services is with Facilities, and, you know, we partner with them a lot. They print a lot of the work that we design. We also go outside depending on what the needs are for the printers. They do a lot of our fulfillments. You know, they control, as Geoffrey said before, they do the letterhead and stationary for the university with also bulk packaging, and printing, and handouts, and whatnot. And they're producing a lot of wall installations now, so that's another resource you have.
[Slide changes: Journalism Video/Audio Studio]
The last one I could think of was the Journalism Video and Audio Studio. They are great. It's a great space in the J school that you could rent out to do your live shoots and your studio production. We do a lot of our voiceovers there, that we rent out the audio studio with talent that goes in. It's a great resource for the university.
[Slide changes: [email protected]]
Okay, and that kind of wraps up our little portion of this. We're here to help, and if that's the biggest remembrance is that, you know, whatever you want to get out of this is that, you know, come to us and we're here to assist in any way possible.
Thank you.
Cassandra:
That was awesome and extremely insightful. I learned a lot myself, actually. I think this is amazing, amazing.
I think one of the biggest takeaways, you know, I received from this, I know—I'll speak for myself; you guys can let me know in the chat or when you guys chime in; feel free to to share—I think one of my earliest experiences being at Columbia is having an idea that was creative, and thinking that because I had the idea that I was responsible to produce it. And I have no graphic design background. And so, I was riddled with anxiety, thinking that I had to perform—to your point of regarding Columbia integrity around the brand—and being new, and I just put on a lot of expectation on myself and didn't, at the time, think to ask, “Do we have a place that we could work with?” Like, it just didn't occur to me, I don't know.
You guys can let me know in the chat if that resonates with you at all, but I think it's really important that we know that we have Columbia Creative as an amazing resource on campus.
So right now, guys, we're going to get into the segment of– We're going to interview Junie for a little bit and Geoffrey and Marisol, so if you guys want to chime in, feel free to do so. So go ahead, this will give you some time.
Mary says, “Absolutely.”
So Mary can relate. Okay, thank goodness, because I was a little worried, like “Oh, I guess it's just me.” Happy to find out that it's not just me. So yeah, so Mary also shares that. And Mary and I had a little quick conversation a couple weeks ago, but yeah, being new at Columbia University, you figure, “You hired me, you know, I'm worthy enough to be here. I want to be part of the Columbia brand. I want to produce.” So it's really comforting to know that we don't have to do it all. So, I think that was one of my biggest takeaways.
So I'm going to get into the Q&A, and then, you guys, I'm going to open it up to the audience to be able to ask some questions.
So the first question that I think would be helpful is, could you describe a little bit what your day-to-day is like?
Junie:
Day-to-day, it's a great thing about actually working with a lot of different schools and divisions is that the work varies so broadly day-to-day.
Cassandra:
Okay.
Junie:
One day we'll be working, you know, on annual reports, one day we'll be working on videos, working with scripts with different clients, kick-off meetings with clients. I mean, it's a nice way to keep us on our toes and also not to keep it stagnant. There's a nice aspect of that.
You know, I think that on any given week, you know, we probably have around 50 to 60 projects at different stages that are happening, you know, with whether or not it's, you know, kicking off meetings to, you know, having the design process in the design department, or it's an editorial, or it's with the client. So it's always a moving cycle; the gears are always running pretty quickly. Sometimes it's challenging, but it always seems to work out well.
Cassandra:
Right. So it makes me also think—because I know we just had Commencement—so I know there are certain like holidays or certain occasions that we have that don't necessarily change. So with something like Commencement, how much of your graphics or your promotions are you changing, or do you kind of just build off from the last year? How does that process work? I’m just kind of curious in this moment since we just had Commencement.
Junie:
Well, we try to do something fresh every year. I mean, there are certain parts of the jobs that are repetitive, and a lot of that is because of timeliness, in one aspect, and it's also because of there's a set look and feel in something determined. But for something like Commencement, especially for something this year, everything was created new.
Cassandra:
Got it.
Junie:
You know, this year was unique. I mean, last year was unique also, but this year, because we had a little bit more lead time than rushing it out of everything being virtual, we were able to basically– You know, we worked with the Commencement office, we created a style guide and a brand guideline, we created a slew of assets that were distributed to different schools, and we also worked on the videos and whatnot, so–
It's a little bit of a mixed bag, you know, like–
Cassandra:
Right.
Junie:
Sometimes there are repetitive aspects of it, but there's also– Every project we do, we try to create something new for it, make it fresh enough for every year.
Cassandra:
Yeah, it sounds to me like you guys do work very much hand-in-hand with any department or unit that you're working with. Do you guys, at any point, will offer up some of your personal recommendations or creative recommendations, or do you really just kind of get what your, in this case, what your client is looking for, and then you share with them what's possible? I'm just kind of curious as to, like, how do these creative elements come about? Is it coming from you guys in terms of, like, these are the assets that you have to choose from that we can build out, or do you really hear organically what they're wanting and you can, kind of, can create from scratch?
Junie:
It goes both ways. I mean, there are– You know, we definitely have projects that we work on where there is a set amount of assets that we put together and to try to make into a project, and then there are projects which, you know, I don't want to say is more fun, but, you know, when we start out with a client and try to determine what their needs are and kind of work collaboratively and more of a partnership in that manner of being able to create things together. You know, it goes both ways. And, you know, I think that we understand that goes both ways, and so that, you know, we're able to kind of route ourselves in that manner.
Cassandra:
Got it.
Junie:
I know that– I just saw in the chat: We use Quickbase as a system to track our projects, so–
Cassandra:
Okay.
Junie:
–that's our project management system.
Cassandra:
Excellent. So, we're going to take some of the some of the questions in chat. We're going to have an opportunity to answer it on Zoom because some people are going to catch the replay and they won't have access to the chat, so I'll give them an opportunity to interact with you guys.
What would you say is the most important aspect of your work?
Junie:
Geoff, you want to take that one?
Geoffrey:
Yeah, sure. Yeah, so we've actually thought a lot about that. A few years back, we wanted to just sort of, you know, define our, you know, positioning statement and, you know, our unique benefits and, you know, really how we contribute to the university. And one thing that stood out to us is this line in the university mission statement, “to advance knowledge and learning at the highest level and to convey the products of its efforts to the world.” So that's part of our mission as Columbians, all of us.
And so that point about “conveying the products of our efforts to the world,” that story just won't be told unless we tell it. And, you know, it doesn't have to be us; it can be other communications vehicles. But we hope to create solutions that really tell that story in a way that, you know, captivates imaginations, and sometimes we'll find people get excited about the work their school's doing just from seeing it translated into a glossy full spread photograph with, you know, interesting typography and everything.
You know, that's the most important thing, I think. It's, you know, supporting the mission and supporting all of you.
Cassandra:
Excellent. So, I do see that the chat is very, very hot right now and live. I was not expecting that, so this is excellent, guys. Keep your questions coming. I'm also getting you guys opportunity to interact with Columbia Creative.
So, Heather, I see your question. Heather, would you like to ask your question? You can unmute yourself, you can be on video, or I'm happy to start the question off; you can ask them follow-up questions, Heather.
Heather:
Thank you.
Junie:
Hi, Heather!
Heather:
Well, actually Junie answered it already, that you use Quickbase as your software for your project management, which is really helpful.
Cassandra:
Are you familiar with that application?
Heather:
I am not; I'm not familiar with that, but I'm going to be looking it up. I’m over at Teachers College.
Junie:
Yeah, it's similar to Basecamp or, you know, different kind of project management systems. For us, you know, it was something that we implemented probably around two or three years ago, now, that has been a lifesaver, in all honesty. You know, just being able to track where jobs are. You know, we do our estimating and billing through it. And also just knowing what– Because we have a bunch of jobs on queue at any given time, just knowing where those are and what the expectations for that week are for the different people, the shareholders, you know.
Heather:
Yeah, that's wonderful. We do use Basecamp for some of our projects; we don't use it for everything. But always looking for things that, you know, could work a little bit better. We've run into some kinks with Basecamp, but I'll look into it, thank you.
Junie:
Yeah, we did a bunch of research on it, and ultimately we actually ended up choosing something that was very easy for everyone to learn and for everyone to implement. And also, you know, one of our account managers was very familiar with it, so it was helpful for the training-wise for all of us, you know.
Heather:
Wonderful, thank you so much.
Cassandra:
Excellent, thank you so much, Heather.
Dina, she wanted to know, are your fees listed anywhere?
Junie:
They are not because each job is very unique, and so primarily what we do is we estimate each job accordingly so we don't have a– You know, if somebody comes to us saying that they, you know, have a campaign, not knowing what that's going to actually entail, what the deliverables are, you know, you would price everything out separately, so, you know, it's–
Usually, the way we work, we'll have a different initial consultation, you know, you come to us, and then we will figure out what we feel like we need, what you need, and then we'll give you an estimate, and it's, you know, an estimated schedule for if you want to get started.
Geoffrey:
Yeah, I was just going to add to– I mean, you know, Columbia varies pretty wildly in terms of, you know, a small office or an entire school or college, and budgets can vary wildly. So what we typically do is just start with, you know, this is what we would typically produce.
If people are, you know, cost conscious, we might, you know, suggest different things. Like if it's a print job, we can use a generic paper stock and that can bring the cost down considerably. You know, if it's a photographer, we might get, you know, a younger photographer, possibly, and bring the cost down or do available light instead of studio lighting.
There's all sorts of things we can do to try to meet your budget, so it's not necessarily like a set price that we would give you but, you know, here's our estimate, but if you need us to meet within a certain budget, we can tell you how we can change the specs to make sure we meet it.
Cassandra:
Wonderful. Andrea Hale, did you want to ask your question? I don't know if she's still here.
Andrea asks, what type of turnaround time do you need for a project?
I think this is so important because I think that was kind of the underlying question that I had around Commencement, because I would imagine if you can somehow tie it into, are there the best times to make a large request? Because I can imagine around Commencement, and you can correct me if I'm wrong, is that, like, the worst time to ask for any projects to be done, or you guys can still kind of manage it?
Junie:
Yes and no. I think that, yeah, there are certain times of the year—Commencement being one of them—that's very– It's usually our busy season. That being said, when we are busy, we do have a group of casual officers that we work with who have been always assisting us, so we'll always bring people on if we need the extra help to take on projects and take on jobs. We're very, very lucky that we have a slew of people who've worked with us in the past or have worked with us presently also, who are primarily there to assist us when we're overbooked and over-, you know, oversaturated, so we try to take almost every project.
That being said, I can't always say we can, necessarily, but we try to, we try to accommodate, you know.
Cassandra:
That's good to know. So, what do you think the turnaround time would be like? Should it be like a week out, or does it really vary widely, or what's the rule of thumb?
Junie:
It varies rightly on what the project is. You know, something like an annual report, you know, we're going to require– That's probably more of a 12-week turnaround, opposed to something like an e-blast would be a one-week turnaround. I mean, it really depends on where, you know, what the project is, and what the deliverables are.
Cassandra:
Okay, wonderful.
Geoffrey:
Yeah, I would just throw in, too, I would just recommend if you even are thinking about a communications project or have some goals, just reach out to us as, you know, earlier rather than later because, you know, we can help you kind of fine-tune what the parameters of your communication might be.
Sometimes, it generally takes a few business days just to set up a meeting, have that introductory meeting, prepare an estimate. If we have to use vendors, we have to find out from the printer how long it will take to print something. And then once we prepare the estimate, our experience is it generally takes another business day or so for your team to kind of review the estimate and make a determination, or if we need to revise it.
And then when we actually start the clock would be when we have a signed estimate, so when Junie says like a week for a simple e-blast, that doesn't even include that sort of initial conversation.
But for reoccurring projects, you know, we're ready to go if we already, you know, we're expecting it or that kind of thing.
Cassandra:
Oh, that's excellent to know.
Jen Leach has a really good question. Jen, would you like to ask? I don’t know if Jen is around, but I will ask–
Jen Leach:
I am. I am, I am, I am.
Cassandra:
Okay, wonderful, yay!
Jen:
I don’t know if you wanted us to have our cameras off; I was sitting on a yoga mat.
Cassandra:
Yes, no problem. Hi, Jen.
Jen:
Hi, everybody.
Cassandra:
I just wanted to just give Jen a little shout out, if you don't mind, if I can embarrass you for a second. Jen is amazing. To say that Jen is amazing and one of our great supporters, and she shows up for us often and is– So, if you want to connect with Jen, she's very personable, very much approachable–
Jen:
[Laughing]
Cassandra:
So sorry. I just had to put you out there a little bit because I get to see you often, and some of our colleagues may not be familiar with you, but Jen is awesome. Thank you, Jen for being here.
Jen:
Yeah, if anyone else does faculty-facing comms, I'd love to talk to you. My question is about, specifically, web design and, you know, for those of us who manage our own websites, I know that there's an increased push on accessibility, and I'm not exactly sure what all the guidelines are and was curious, sort of, from your shop, what is the projection of, you know, when we all need to be 100% accessible, or what that even looks like.
Junie:
That I have to, honestly, contact like– It's more gonna be Sheri Whitley, and it's gonna be more her realm. I know that the time frame to make all the sites accessible, I would guess that she's gonna say “Immediately.” But that being said, you know, I don't know if there's a strict, you know, a time deadline on, kind of, that initiative. I know that it's been going on for a while, and I know that it's, you know, it's very important for any Columbia site to be accessible, just not only legally but also just ethically, you know?
Jen:
Right.
Junie:
So that being said, I don't know the exact timeframe.
Jen:
That being said, I should also specify, because we are doing our LGBTQ guide with you guys, which will be print edition and a PDF as well, so–
Junie:
So, PDF-wise, you know, for a PDF that's going to be going online, you know, we are at this point making the steps to make that accessible, so we pretty much are, you know– And I have to say that's something that we just started very recently, of having that consideration of making all the PDFs accessible.
You know, if they're going to be on a platform like Issuu or, you know, one of those online platforms where it's actually going to be a little bit of animation in them, those are not accessible, and by nature they're not accessible, and they're not going to be.
So if accessible is a necessity for your kind of PDFs, we need to– It's helpful for us to know that on the get-go on kind of what format it's going to be, because it's a little bit more time consuming for us to all do all the styling and tagging and the reading orders and whatnot, you know.
Jen:
Okay, thank you so much.
Geoffrey:
I was just going to add too, I might refer you to the web content accessibility guidelines, so we do use those for color scheme. I mentioned earlier in 2018 launching the Medical Center rebrand, working closely with that communications team, and that was a kind of a go-to resource where you can check things, like if I have white type on, you know, a certain color of blue value you know would I get a triple A rating or a double A rating in terms of contrast ratio, so there's things like that.
Junie’s point, too, we have been doing more digital PDFs. And right now, we've been actually recently helping the Knight Institute with just translating some of their figures and exhibits so that they're all accessible because we don't want people to have a PDF that wouldn't say, read the components or something like that. So it's definitely consideration, but for web specifically I think Junie’s absolutely right; Sheri’s probably the best person to start with.
Jen:
Yeah, and Sheri and Bernard have also been putting together design systems for webs, so it's going to be, you know, it's like that library of content that might be more useful, so going forward.
Cassandra:
Excellent, excellent. Actually, Mary has a follow-up question regarding accessibility. Hi, Mary.
Mary:
Hello.
Cassandra:
Mary, let everyone know how long you've been here; you've been here so long at Columbia University.
Mary:
1 year.
Cassandra:
So, Mary has joined Columbia University, like, right when the pandemic hit, so she doesn't have the privilege of being able to connect faces and voices and so on and so forth, so Mary I'm so happy I got to virtually meet you, I think like a week and a half ago or so.
Mary:
Yeah, absolutely, yeah
Cassandra:
Thank you for being here.
Mary:
Thank you so much; that was a great call. I'm so excited by this whole meeting right now, and I have a kabillion questions. Obviously, I know I can't answer that right now. So yes, I've been here a year and kind of only now am I settled enough to really start trying to create the communication plan that I want, that I think we need, and really starting to build on what I think might be lacking.
First, I was gonna– A couple questions about accessibility because I had those anyway. When it comes to PDF, PDF does provide its own internal system for making it ADA compliant and even checking itself. Do you all think that that is enough to then say, “Yes, this is accessible,” or do you not?
Junie:
Well, it's a great tool. I think that, you know, to initially start with that tool. So, you know, just really being conscious of when the PDF does it itself, a lot of times the reading order is off. You know, where the heads are, the order that a reader would read a document, like, might not necessarily make as much sense of what they perceive it to be, in a way. So, a human hand is actually probably necessary–
Mary:
Okay.
Junie:
–to kind of adjust those reading orders. I think that, you know, the manual contrast of colors is also– It's always going to default to having to check manually, so I think that that's one thing you always kind of have to do. And also, you know, the biggest part of when there's a lot of imagery and there's a lot of charts, you know, is just the naming. You know, making sure that you have the titles and naming them so that the readers
Mary:
Yeah, we kind of wipe that all off of it just to make it easier, which leads into my—so, thank you for that—which leads into a second question that I have also that's been killing me is infographics and making infographics ADA compliant. And I know this is very specific topic we can take offline, but I was wondering if you have experience in that, and is that, like, a service that you would provide? Could I say, “Can you help me make one that is accessible?”
Junie:
Honestly, it's not as easy as I wished it would possibly be.
Mary:
Right.
Junie:
A lot of infographics, and a lot of infographics that we create, we actually make as imagery, and we do the description of what the infographic is, you know, for the accessibility, making it as an image. Which is probably not the ideal route, but it is kind of a workaround. It's challenging, so it's depending on what your, you know, what your infographic is and whether or not a reader could actually, you know, go through that in a PDF and kind of determine its parts.
You know, we always create tables as tables within, like, InDesign so that it will be read as tables and things like that, but infographics are a lot more challenging. And I'm sure there's way better ways to do it that we have to keep on– We always have to keep learning on how, you know–
Mary:
I’ll email you on that one.
Junie:
–how to make it all work out.
Mary:
My other broader question is, I am kind of more within the Medical Center, so does that mean I reach out to groups at the Medical Center first for maybe things like what you do, or is it fine that I'm reaching out to you and having you help me with projects?
Junie:
You can reach out to us. So, you know, there are specific things that for the Medical Center, especially if it's web projects, we are going to recommend you go to the Medical Center because that’s not a service we– There's an approval process of things that would be— For different departments and different schools and institutes we're fine, but if it's for the Medical Center as a general whole, whatever we designed would go through the, you know, communications at CUIMC to make sure it's cool.
Mary:
Okay, okay, okay. Thank you so much.
Cassandra:
Wonderful. Thank you, guys, for answering Mary's questions. Another question is coming from Andrea. She wants to know, “When designing for print, do you manage the process with selecting and then managing the printer/milhouse as well?”
Junie:
Yes. We will handle the vendors and the print buyers, so it’s depending on what the project is. As I said before, there are certain projects that we partner with Print Services and use their services for the printing and fulfillment. There's other projects where, you know, we find that other printers have better strengths at certain, you know, certain techniques. We'll pick a printer determined on what the project is, and what kind of specialty they'll need on it, and then we'll handle the whole project up to delivery, you know.
Cassandra:
So in that case, where maybe Print Services gets involved, will they have to send their chart string separately to Print Services-?
Junie:
No.
Cassandra:
Or do you and Print Services work–? Okay
Junie:
We’ll work it all together.
Cassandra:
Got it.
Junie:
We try to be, like, kind of a one-stop shop in that manner that, you know, all the vendors, all the photographers, all the invoicing we're going to be doing on our ends, and then we'll just be, you know, having one kind of comprehensive bill.
Cassandra:
Got it. And another question that we have separate from the chat, and I'll get back to the chat, is, “What would you say makes an image visually compelling versus merely good?” So, if someone's working on something and they want to say, work on their social media, they want to do something pretty quickly, how can they make the distinction between that image that is just “All right, this is pretty decent” versus compelling.
Junie:
Well, you know, an image has a thousand words, which is actually always true. I think that the most important part of making a compelling image is that it actually, without words, tells a story, and that story has to have a focal point. And so I think it's important to have, like, a focus to it. It also has a little bit of a personality to a point where they kind of want to know more.
The idea of any kind of image is to bring somebody in that's going to make you click to your website to get more information and, you know, it's not always– We want to say an ideal day it’s always achieved, and it's not necessarily always achieved. But I think that the most important thing is to get something that's focused, that's—not focused as in clear, I mean just focused as having a, you know, having a point of view and also having a personality.
I think, you know, once you get images, a lot of times we're given a bunch of imagery that's like, you know, all these people lined up, you know, in front of a podium, you know, in front of a backdrop, and it's not necessarily the most compelling because it's seen always. You also want to have an image that doesn't look like a stock image. For me, it's very important to have, you know, your students being your students, your faculty members being your faculty members, your researchers being your researchers.
You know, there's so many generic stock imagery, which are—some of them are great and there's, you know, definitely no problem with some of them—but there's so many lifestyle shots that you don't want, you know, your medical research imagery to be the same one that's used by a different company on the subway somewhere else. You have to be very conscious of, you know, who you're trying to represent and what you're trying to represent, and for us, you know, you always want to represent the university in its best light. And so in that manner, you know, try to use imagery that's really going to do that.
Cassandra:
Right, right, thank for that–
Mary:
If I might interject one comment that's a plug to your group. It needs to be a quality image, you know–
Junie:
Yes.
Mary:
–of quality camera. You know, I mean literally in the value of whether it was printed or the camera used just the mere, you know, crispness of lines and proper lighting makes a great image versus just an okay image.
Junie:
I mean, that's the beauty of art direction.
Mary:
Right, right. You know, it’s huge; it really is huge.
Junie:
You know, it's also the beauty of having somebody who does this, you know, and who this is their expertise, you know, who's able to be on shoot, to be able to know, you know, that something's lit well. You know, with technology today, there's so many, you know, so many benefits of being able to capture every single moment on every single thing, but you don't necessarily need to show every single moment, every single thing if it's not good quality. And I think that that's, you know, key point of what we're trying to show people.
Cassandra:
Yes. Heather is curious and wants to know, “Approximately how many people are your full CU creative team?” For Columbia Creative.
Junie:
It ranges, and I have to say we've gotten much tighter in the last year, and I feel like that we are looking to expand that. Right now, we are a group of five. Five? Group of six, we're a group of six. We use a lot of our corral of casuals, so it's all casual officers who help us out on, you know, on a weekly and monthly basis.
Cassandra:
Good question. What would you say are the biggest challenges Columbia Creative experiences when an employee comes forward or a department wants to work with your unit? What are some of the biggest challenges you guys experience? Allow me to extend why this is an ask is in preparation in case there are certain things that people can avoid, possibly if at all. Like, how can they best prepare themselves when they're making their requests?
Geoffrey:
Yeah, I was gonna take this one. Yeah, so I think one of the biggest challenges is, strangely enough, communication. It's funny how a lot of us in this meeting are all communicators, and yet sometimes we'll find that we as communicators can sometimes struggle over, you know, that very thing. I think sometimes we'll have a meeting and maybe our colleagues try to be very helpful and maybe supply both a communication goal and a solution. And sometimes if it's, like you know, a pretty small job it can totally work to just execute something and move on, but really the best work comes from that collaboration where we really work together and identify our goals and solutions and move forward from there. So I think that that's probably the biggest challenge is just making sure we have a good dynamic, working relationship, open communication.
I mean, I spent years at an advertising agency before this, and one of the things that I noticed is that, you know, the creative team might work for weeks on a piece of communication and then pitch it to maybe a marketing manager or marketing VP. And those are weeks where you're not getting feedback.
So one of the great things about our office and being in-house is we can just reach out, you know, if maybe one component there was a question about it, we can shoot an email and say, “Hey, here's what we're thinking about this,” you know, maybe get some more details. And that collaboration just really tends to produce a superior product.
Cassandra:
That's really great to know. So in other words, no one should feel at all at odds with the ping-pong communication of going back and forth. They should kind of anticipate that, that a lot of ideas will be thrown around. Sometimes they'll have to just see it. They may have an idea and they have this vision in their mind, but then it might be just you need to just see it and that's okay.
Geoffrey:
Yeah, and I'd say, too, some of the best ideas come from, you know, everywhere. You know, it's like you can never anticipate. Some of the best ideas come in the revision process, some of them will come from our colleagues who have an idea about something, and no one knows your office or your area better than you, so. You know, it really does take that collaboration. One of the things I often tell designers in our team is, you know, you haven't done your job unless you've given your professional recommendation. So be sure to speak up, give your professional recommendation.
We might, you know, advocate not making a certain design choice or a certain communication choice, and we'll give you a full disclosure. But, you know, if you really insist and you think it's right for, you know, for your communication, then oftentimes we'll just go ahead and, you know, try to be supportive and, you know, with that disclaimer.
Cassandra:
Absolutely. What would you guys say is so– [Phone alarm sounds.] Oh, by the way, everyone, we're pretty much over the five minute mark. We have about, like, two minutes left. So if you have any other burning questions, feel free to put them in the chat. You are not obligated to show up and ask. I'm happy to ask on your behalf. I just like to give you the opportunity to ask directly.
Another question is, “What is the most underutilized service that your unit provides, that Columbia Creative provides?” What do you think is the most underutilized service? Maybe people aren't aware that it exists or maybe even that you'd hope that more people would utilize this particular resource or service.
Junie:
I think that one of the more underutilized is our Columbia ad services, which is pretty much what Marisol takes care of. The fact that she creates these marketing plans for different departments and different institutes. You know, she inevitably increases the click rate of so much of what she does, and I think that, you know, she's getting the data together and, like, kind of quantitatively being able to tell you how good your, you know, your campaign is doing. Not only does she post the ads, but she actually, you know, works with Geoffrey to find the best outlets, you know, the best platforms for your ads to appear at.
Another asset would be, really it's like what Geoffrey does in his creative strategy. He really works with the clients to figure out, you know, what the best route and what kind of communications would be the best for them. If you're a little bit unsure of who your audience is and how broadly your range would be, I think that that's one thing that we have that is a great asset to us and I think a great asset to others.
Cassandra:
That's excellent. Thank you, guys, so much. I have one surprise question. This is a wild question—wild card question. I'm actually very curious, and it's okay if it doesn't exist, but I'm curious to know, are there any plans for Columbia Creative to bring on any new forms of technology or ways of enhancing visual images that'll take Columbia Creative to the next level? Are there any thoughts around that at all?
That was a good wild card question, wasn’t it? [Laughs.]
Junie:
[Laughs.]
Geoffrey:
May I jump in while Junie’s thinking? But yeah, I mean, like Junie said before, you know, we're constantly learning, constantly, you know, staying up to date. So there might be a new software surface option out there that we're currently learning or, you know, maybe we'll actually use– Earlier this fiscal year we were using the Knight Institute's chart generation software so that they wouldn't have to go into that. We did, like, interactive graphs and charts and that was a new kind of project that we had not done up before this past year. So yeah, I think it's just always staying current and always, you know, taking the new projects and learning what we can and, you know, staying ahead of things.
Cassandra:
Excellent. Well, thank you, guys, so much. We made it to 3 p.m. Could you imagine? Like, it went by so quickly. Thank you, guys, so much. Columbia Creative, thank you, Junie, Geoffrey, and Marisol for showing up and just making yourself, you guys, available to let everybody know what resources you guys offer.
Everybody who's joined in, feel free to reach out. The replay will be made available. I'll be sending out an email about that shortly.
Thank you, guys, so much for attending. This was very, very much insightful. You guys, take care, and I will be reconnecting with you guys soon.
Mary:
Thank you.
Unidentified attendee #1:
Thanks, Cassandra.
Unidentified attendee #2:
Take care, everybody.
Cassandra:
Bye, everyone. Thank you for coming
All right, good afternoon, everyone. Thank you, guys, so much for joining. This is WeConnect Virtual Communications Lab, and we are joined by Columbia Creative. They're going to be presenting a writing presentation around the creative resources that is made available to the communicators at Columbia University. We are extremely excited. This is kind of like Virtual Communications Lab reprised, if you will. We took a little bit of a break, but we are back strong. It seems like Columbia Creative resources is a fan favorite; everyone wants to know more about Columbia Creative: the resources that is available to them, and what you guys actually do.
So everyone who is pouring who's coming in, please feel free to put yourself on mute. We may even ask—for the sake of the presentation—there's a possibility if we see a glitch, I may ask for everyone to also stop their video, as that tends to help with the flow for videos when we're sharing presentations. So if there are no problems and no issues, all goes well, but just a heads up, I may ask for that.
So please put yourself on mute, and in the chat box if you would kindly share your full name, your department, your email address, that would be lovely. I'm going to put myself on mute and give you guys an opportunity to each introduce yourselves and, you know, of course you guys are part of Columbia Creative but your title, and we’ll enjoy the presentation.
Then, I'll have a few questions, great questions, for Columbia Creative, and then following that we will open it up to the larger audience for Q&A. So if you have your questions ready or you want to take some notes, this would be a great time to get yourself prepared for that because we are going to give some time at the end for you guys to interact with Marisol, Junie, or Geoffrey, yourself, to ask the questions, your burning questions.
So thank you, guys, so much for agreeing to do this especially, so shortly after Commencement. I know it's been a wild ride, but I’m really excited and I cannot wait to hear more about Columbia Creative. Take it away.
[Second slide: Individual Introductions]
Junie Lee:
Thanks, Cassandra. I'm looking down a couple of the names, so some of you might have seen bits and pieces of this presentation at the very beginning already, so I apologize for the repetition. But for those who have not seen it, I appreciate Cassandra's giving us this venue to introduce ourselves and to the wider community. My name is Junie Lee; I'm the Director of Creative Services at Columbia Creative.
Marisol Estevez:
And I'm Marisol Estevez, and I'm the Advertising Manager.
Geoffrey:
And I'm Geoffrey, Creative Strategist.
[Third slide: Columbia Creative Introduction]
Junie:
As a quick introduction for those who've never heard of us, is Columbia Creative is the central office for the Columbia University's visual communications. We design work for all schools, institutes, departments over all the different campuses of the university. My team consists of arts directors and designers, account managers, editorial, and advertising. You know, we are pretty much the in-house design group for the university. You know, we are part of the office of Communications and Public Affairs, in which case another one of our roles is to steward the visual identity guidelines and the university brand. Our primary goal as an office is to tell the Columbia story to the outside world. You know, we partner with various divisions to create communications that we try to help reach their targeted audiences to see who they want to tell their story to.
We know that the university is very siloed, and there's a lot of different divisions, and we know that each one is unique, and everyone has a unique voice. And one of our biggest goals is to capture that voice for each division in their communications while still maintaining the Columbia mission and the brand integrity.
Go on, next slide, Geoff. Thank you.
[Fourth slide: Highest quality of design and client services]
There is some thoughts of why people come to us to do their communications and, you know, I'm really proud of the team that we have, that they have the highest quality design and client services; we have account managers with infinite patience who are able to traffic a job through, you know, all the different divisions.
We really pride ourselves on the partnership we have with the different schools, that we work together with you to get your mission together; we strategize at the beginning to basically know who you're trying to reach, what you're trying to say, and what's the best way to get there.
You know, the beauty of it—in-house department of any large organization—is that we have an ingrained institutional knowledge. You know, we all know Columbia’s ins and outs, ups and downs, good and bad, and we're here to be able to focus on showing the world your story.
You know, we're also a full service shop so come to us; we design, we produce, we distribute. And most importantly, that we are Columbia, so we're part of you, so your successes are definitely our successes. The only reason we exist is to make you look good, and so that's our role here.
Next slide.
[Fifth slide: Storytelling through Design, Illustration, Photography, Illustration, Video, and Information Graphics]
Okay, I would just want to go through some samples and examples of some of our work that we do. In the last year, through the pandemic, you know, a lot of our work has shifted, and we have to be a little bit more agile in our offerings.
Can you go to the next slide, Geoff?
[Sixth slide: Commencement photos and GIFs]
One of the things that you might have seen us recently is kind of the work that we did for Commencement. We're trying to bring a little bit more excitement into the celebrations that were all virtual. So we worked with the Commencement team, and worked with Public Affairs and the different schools, and we created, you know, Facebook filters, and animations, stickers, and GIPHYs for social. If you are on campus, there are a bunch of College Walk posters we produced, and designed grad kits that were sent out to the graduates that were just to kind of up the spirits and try to make it more Insta-ready.
Next slide, please.
[Seventh slide: COVID posters]
Another thing you've probably seen, if you all have been on campus, or have been looking online, is that we've been working with Facilities and with Columbia Health and also with Public Affairs to kind of get the COVID-19 word out. We designed a bunch of signage for digital signs for social, for websites. You know, all so we get the messaging of staying healthy on campus.
Next slide.
[Eighth slide: Vote]
Another one of the things we did want more of is creating content for social because of what's been going on. This is something that we worked with Acacia and her team for helping out with the Columbia votes messaging, you know, with GIPHY stickers. We created elements and assets for social, including, like, short animation to start at the videos and also kind of mailer kits for swag for incentive to join the Columbia votes initiative.
Next slide, please.
[Ninth slide: Keep Columbia Healthy]
I feel like I saw the digital screens are social on campus, you know, the Columbia Stay Healthy, Go Green. We try to make it a little bit more friendly, and having the iconography of Alma and Rory and, you know, doing Banner ads for the Spec. You saw them online, on social, so you know that's kind of some of the few projects that we've been doing lately.
I'm going to jump it over to Geoff who is going to talk a little bit about video work.
[Tenth slide: Black screen]
Geoffrey:
Yeah thanks, Junie. So yeah, one of the things we noticed during the pandemic, as I'm sure all of us did, is just being adaptable to the new environment and certain areas of our services. We built it up during the last year just because of the kind of new digital environment, so we have a few video examples. I actually saw a few colleagues on the call who we worked with. We have an example, first, of actually a clip from 10 different videos that we did for an NIH funded research program called “All of Us.” I'll play a little bit of that right now.
[Video starts playing. Music.]
Woman from video:
Well I think that what's unique and important about the All of Us research program is that, you know, there are treatments and medications that don't work for everyone, and this program is really trying to find out why.
[Video clip ends]
Geoffrey:
So this again an example– You have to pardon it's a little bit glitchy sometimes when we do a Zoom screen share of video, but you can still get the gist of it. This one was done before the pandemic. Since then we've done two additional videos. During the heat of the pandemic, we actually had to get a studio in Long Island City to produce two of these.
[Eleventh slide: Blue screen]
And then the second examples—for the Barnard gala, they actually had to cancel it in 2020 due to the pandemic—and just completed it a little while ago for coming back in 2021. So, this is an example of animation that we do, and having a voiceover artist come in, and we edit it together, and here's the final product or at least a clip of it.
[Second video starts playing]
Voiceover (older woman):
The Barnard network transcends generations and geography, and while our community has always been strong, this year tested all of us in ways that inspired heartening connections and a bold new level of resilience and innovation. When the decision was made to go virtual for the fall semester, Barnard launched the Alumnae Circles program to connect students with the alumnae network, and each other, through more than a hundred circles based on region, industry, affinity, and identity. Alumnae and students have transcended physical distance to share the Barnard spirit.
[Video clip ends]
Geoffrey:
Yeah, so you can kind of get a sense of how that might come together. That was actually not a professional voiceover artist, that was actually an alumna who came in, and we got the recording from her.
And then the last example here:
[Twelfth slide: Presidential Awards video. The video starts playing]
Voiceover (woman):
Presidential awards for outstanding teaching are given to Columbia faculty and graduate student instructors who have significantly influenced the intellectual development of university students. With deepest admiration, we recognize these educators selected by the campus community for this honor for their sustained excellence in teaching and remarkable dedication. This year's recipients are Denise Cruz, Associate Professor of English and Comparative Literature, Department of English and Comparative Literature, Faculty of Arts and Sciences.
[Video clip ends.]
[Thirteenth slide: Cartoon lion]
Geoffrey:
So that's kind of an example of quite a series of videos we did. I saw Jen on the call; we did one for mentoring, service, awards, faculty mentorship. So, we've done Zoom-based productions for trustees, for Columbia Neighbors, so quite a range, and I didn't envision before the pandemic just how useful some of that communication could be, so that's definitely a resource for you.
This is an example done for Alumni and Development where we can sort of chart the progress of the Columbia Commitment Campaign, and you can kind of see as the animation plays–
[Animation is playing: lion leaps from column to column]
–you know, just showing the progress at different stages, and then also Alumni Development colleagues would receive an email. We designed a medal that we produced and could be sent to different groups as they reach their milestones.
Junie?
[Fourteenth slide: Columbia Science cover]
Junie:
We just pulled some examples of the traditional print work that we've actually accomplished with different reports and different strategic reports that we've done for different offices. Annual reports is still something we love doing, and we do quite a bit of. We also continue on with–
Done, next slide
[Slide changes: Magazine article titled “Combating Corruption in Russia”]
–you know, magazine design, which is one of our favorites. We love doing the layouts. We love doing that, putting these narratives together. I'm gonna–
Next slide.
[Slide changes: Two open magazines, Elizabeth Hillman & Discovery + Innovation]
–you know, doing the photoshop, you know, the photo shoots to actually putting the layouts in place.
[Slide changes: Columbia Law School folders]
This is some older pieces that we've done for admissions.
Next slide.
[Slide changes: Class of 2024 Profile]
This is for the college.
[Slide changes: Observatory photo]
Print is something that we haven't done as we're– We still have a strong print. You know, in the last year we have obviously not seen as much. We're hoping that there's going to be a little bit more of a hybrid that's going to happen. Coming with live events going on, that we're going to be able to do a kind of campaign that's going to combine the social and the online and the digital with the print assets of it.
Let me go back to Geoff right now and talk little about photography.
Geoffrey:
Yeah, that's great, yeah, and just to say on that point too, I mean generally, when we first meet with an office or a few colleagues about their communication project, we discuss some of those considerations. And sometimes, you know, there's a place for a printed invite, sometimes there's a place for a PDF, so that you sort of time stamp the publication, and people can kind of refer back to it years down the road to see what your goals were and maybe a strategic plan. So yeah, we just kind of advocate for whatever medium best suits those communication goals.
This is an example of some photography, so this one actually– We’ll tend to try to find the right photographer for the job. This one was Pietro Radinski, and just really capturing something beautiful with available light. Sometimes we'll also bring in photographers who will come in with a full set of studio equipment, and we'll actually set up a studio.
Different schools and colleges have different communication department sizes, and sometimes we work with a singular communications person who represents that school or office. Other times, maybe the school has several designers, and in those cases we've maybe set up a photo shoot for them and let them art direct it. So, really just here to be as helpful as we can and that really varies from school to school.
[Slide changes: Jigsaw puzzle]
Here's an example of some illustration of, you know, putting that together–
[Slide changes: Jigsaw Puzzle image in Columbia News article]
–and then the final placement here on Columbia News to sort of, you know, draw you in to read the article.
[Slide changes: Cartoon buildings on a street]
Another example of illustration here.
[Slide changes: Pregnant woman on SIPA Magazine cover]
And this was one for SIPA Magazine where they, right now, are doing their design internally but helping them out with illustration for their cover story.
[Slide changes: The Pulitzer Prizes]
And then also we do events. Usually it's like an anniversary event, you know, sometimes street banners, and then in this case it was for the Pulitzer Prize when they had their last administrator come in, helping with podium and signage and gobo lights you'll see on the wall there in Low Memorial Library.
[Slide changes: Storytelling through Advertising and Marketing]
And then Marisol is going to talk to us about storytelling through advertising and marketing.
Marisol:
Thank you, Geoffrey.
[Slide changes: Display & Digital Ads]
So, good afternoon, everyone. I'll be giving an insight of what services we offer as an in-house ad agency for the university. We strategize and make recommendations for your program or event to measure the effectiveness increasing the department's return on investment. Those recommendations can consist of display ads or digital banner ads.
Next slide, please.
[Slide changes: Manhattanville]
Here we have an example of a full page ad that we did for Manhattanville, on the left, and two digital banner ads, on the right.
Next slide.
[Slide changes: Environmental ads]
Depending on your budget, an environmental ad buy could be an option. Subway car ads, which are the large ads that are at the top of the subway cars by the handrails; bus shelter ads are the posters; Full Turnstile Denomination, which is the entire turnstile area; LinkNYC, they're above ground almost on every other corner; Digital Urban Panels are the digital screens which rotate ads that are shown as you're walking down the stairs to the subway station; and street banners. Here we have, on the left, example of a LinkNYC ad, and on the right we have a street banner ad.
[Slide changes: Subway turnstiles]
[Slide changes: All of Us ad]
Next we have– A mailing list can be purchased for direct mail marketing campaigns targeted by zip code, based on demographic areas. We recently had a project to promote a medical research program. The direct mailing approach was very effective for them. Here we have a postcard that we printed for the outreach of zip codes for surrounding areas of the hospitals. Their goal was to increase the number of enrolled participants.
Next slide, please.
[Slide changes: Mailing list]
We also purchase email lists, such as GRE, GMAT, and TOEFL for potential students to increase enrollment. Basically, by selecting certain criterias and specific score rangings, a list is created and sent to departments in an Excel file. Most departments send out these email blasts themselves, but it is a service that our office could potentially provide as well.
Last, we have job recruitment ads. These ads are posted in roughly about three days, but they can be posted sooner, and we help facilitate the websites that these ads appear in. And the process is that the ad will go through our editorial department for grammatical errors, and then we will confirm that there is a live URL link embedded in the ad content and an affirmative action statement. And once the ad goes live, we will follow up with the URL of the live posting. Many times, departments must show proof that the ads were posted externally, and the URL can always serve as your proof. So that's pretty much Columbia Ad in a nutshell.
[Slide changes: Storytelling through Branding and Brand Management]
Now, I'm going to turn it back over to Geoffrey.
Geoffrey:
Thanks, Marisol. So, another section where to touch base on is storytelling through branding and brand management. So, as I'm sure you’re all aware, Columbia is a pretty decentralized university, so we operate in some ways like an in-house department and in other ways like a, you know, small design firm kind of a thing.
So, with regard to brand management, we actually will produce trademarks that are university branded, without any charge, usually within a couple business days. Sometimes there's a little bit of flexibility in terms of style choices, and if you're part of the Medical Center we might refer you up there.
And then for special projects, we would love to just have a meeting and just discuss what your communication goals are, and if it ends up being something that we can help with, we would then open a job for that. And we do recover costs for those sorts of jobs.
[Slide changes: SIPA; Sustainable Columbia]
So, the few examples we have. First, we include an example of the SIPA 70th anniversary. That's just kind of representative of a lot of style guides. We'll do anniversary-related. And then below that, you'll see Sustainable Columbia. For both the, you know, anniversary trademark, or in that case special trademark, with the brand guidelines on the left.
[Slide changes: Columbia brands]
And then this is an example– So, back in 2018 we launched the new branding for the Medical Center and the four colleges and schools with Kristen Francesco and the communications team up at CUIMC Communications. So, we worked very closely to develop the brand architecture that you can kind of see represented on the left, at least the basic components, and then the letterhead ensemble, and color schemes, street signs, and that sort of thing, and then helped launch a couple years back.
So from this point on, now, we've– Actually, Print Services handles the letterhead ensemble if people need letterhead printed from that point on, and CUIMC Communications will help with any new trademarks that are generated.
[Slide changes: Other Resources]
Junie?
Junie:
Okay, all right.
[Slide changes: Office of Public Affairs Video News Team]
So that pretty much wraps up a little bit of what we do, and I just kind of wanted to touch base on the other assets, other resources, that are on campus for everybody. A great one is Robert Branch and his video team. Robert Branch makes videos for the Columbia News site and for—which are posted on the news site and also on the Columbia platform—for Youtube and Facebook. You know, they focus on video stories that are strategic importance to the university, so primarily if you have something that is within the strategic mission for what's going on at the university now, I recommend pitching him, and see whether or not he could create a video for you.
You know, we are happy to do video work for you, also. This is just one other resource that you could have. Also their department also, you know, helps us and provides us with video content for stock imagery of the university that we incorporated to our videos and we edit out, also.
Okay next slide.
[Slide changes: University Photographer: Eileen Barosso]
Eileen Barosso, as I'm sure most of you know, is a university photographer. You know, we work with a lot of different photographers. Eileen is definitely someone whose work you've seen everywhere. She has a lot of great campus shots, a lot of great portraiture, and she's a huge asset, and so if you need some work done that's immediate and of high quality also, she's another resource to touch base with.
[Slide changes: Print Services]
Print Services is with Facilities, and, you know, we partner with them a lot. They print a lot of the work that we design. We also go outside depending on what the needs are for the printers. They do a lot of our fulfillments. You know, they control, as Geoffrey said before, they do the letterhead and stationary for the university with also bulk packaging, and printing, and handouts, and whatnot. And they're producing a lot of wall installations now, so that's another resource you have.
[Slide changes: Journalism Video/Audio Studio]
The last one I could think of was the Journalism Video and Audio Studio. They are great. It's a great space in the J school that you could rent out to do your live shoots and your studio production. We do a lot of our voiceovers there, that we rent out the audio studio with talent that goes in. It's a great resource for the university.
[Slide changes: [email protected]]
Okay, and that kind of wraps up our little portion of this. We're here to help, and if that's the biggest remembrance is that, you know, whatever you want to get out of this is that, you know, come to us and we're here to assist in any way possible.
Thank you.
Cassandra:
That was awesome and extremely insightful. I learned a lot myself, actually. I think this is amazing, amazing.
I think one of the biggest takeaways, you know, I received from this, I know—I'll speak for myself; you guys can let me know in the chat or when you guys chime in; feel free to to share—I think one of my earliest experiences being at Columbia is having an idea that was creative, and thinking that because I had the idea that I was responsible to produce it. And I have no graphic design background. And so, I was riddled with anxiety, thinking that I had to perform—to your point of regarding Columbia integrity around the brand—and being new, and I just put on a lot of expectation on myself and didn't, at the time, think to ask, “Do we have a place that we could work with?” Like, it just didn't occur to me, I don't know.
You guys can let me know in the chat if that resonates with you at all, but I think it's really important that we know that we have Columbia Creative as an amazing resource on campus.
So right now, guys, we're going to get into the segment of– We're going to interview Junie for a little bit and Geoffrey and Marisol, so if you guys want to chime in, feel free to do so. So go ahead, this will give you some time.
Mary says, “Absolutely.”
So Mary can relate. Okay, thank goodness, because I was a little worried, like “Oh, I guess it's just me.” Happy to find out that it's not just me. So yeah, so Mary also shares that. And Mary and I had a little quick conversation a couple weeks ago, but yeah, being new at Columbia University, you figure, “You hired me, you know, I'm worthy enough to be here. I want to be part of the Columbia brand. I want to produce.” So it's really comforting to know that we don't have to do it all. So, I think that was one of my biggest takeaways.
So I'm going to get into the Q&A, and then, you guys, I'm going to open it up to the audience to be able to ask some questions.
So the first question that I think would be helpful is, could you describe a little bit what your day-to-day is like?
Junie:
Day-to-day, it's a great thing about actually working with a lot of different schools and divisions is that the work varies so broadly day-to-day.
Cassandra:
Okay.
Junie:
One day we'll be working, you know, on annual reports, one day we'll be working on videos, working with scripts with different clients, kick-off meetings with clients. I mean, it's a nice way to keep us on our toes and also not to keep it stagnant. There's a nice aspect of that.
You know, I think that on any given week, you know, we probably have around 50 to 60 projects at different stages that are happening, you know, with whether or not it's, you know, kicking off meetings to, you know, having the design process in the design department, or it's an editorial, or it's with the client. So it's always a moving cycle; the gears are always running pretty quickly. Sometimes it's challenging, but it always seems to work out well.
Cassandra:
Right. So it makes me also think—because I know we just had Commencement—so I know there are certain like holidays or certain occasions that we have that don't necessarily change. So with something like Commencement, how much of your graphics or your promotions are you changing, or do you kind of just build off from the last year? How does that process work? I’m just kind of curious in this moment since we just had Commencement.
Junie:
Well, we try to do something fresh every year. I mean, there are certain parts of the jobs that are repetitive, and a lot of that is because of timeliness, in one aspect, and it's also because of there's a set look and feel in something determined. But for something like Commencement, especially for something this year, everything was created new.
Cassandra:
Got it.
Junie:
You know, this year was unique. I mean, last year was unique also, but this year, because we had a little bit more lead time than rushing it out of everything being virtual, we were able to basically– You know, we worked with the Commencement office, we created a style guide and a brand guideline, we created a slew of assets that were distributed to different schools, and we also worked on the videos and whatnot, so–
It's a little bit of a mixed bag, you know, like–
Cassandra:
Right.
Junie:
Sometimes there are repetitive aspects of it, but there's also– Every project we do, we try to create something new for it, make it fresh enough for every year.
Cassandra:
Yeah, it sounds to me like you guys do work very much hand-in-hand with any department or unit that you're working with. Do you guys, at any point, will offer up some of your personal recommendations or creative recommendations, or do you really just kind of get what your, in this case, what your client is looking for, and then you share with them what's possible? I'm just kind of curious as to, like, how do these creative elements come about? Is it coming from you guys in terms of, like, these are the assets that you have to choose from that we can build out, or do you really hear organically what they're wanting and you can, kind of, can create from scratch?
Junie:
It goes both ways. I mean, there are– You know, we definitely have projects that we work on where there is a set amount of assets that we put together and to try to make into a project, and then there are projects which, you know, I don't want to say is more fun, but, you know, when we start out with a client and try to determine what their needs are and kind of work collaboratively and more of a partnership in that manner of being able to create things together. You know, it goes both ways. And, you know, I think that we understand that goes both ways, and so that, you know, we're able to kind of route ourselves in that manner.
Cassandra:
Got it.
Junie:
I know that– I just saw in the chat: We use Quickbase as a system to track our projects, so–
Cassandra:
Okay.
Junie:
–that's our project management system.
Cassandra:
Excellent. So, we're going to take some of the some of the questions in chat. We're going to have an opportunity to answer it on Zoom because some people are going to catch the replay and they won't have access to the chat, so I'll give them an opportunity to interact with you guys.
What would you say is the most important aspect of your work?
Junie:
Geoff, you want to take that one?
Geoffrey:
Yeah, sure. Yeah, so we've actually thought a lot about that. A few years back, we wanted to just sort of, you know, define our, you know, positioning statement and, you know, our unique benefits and, you know, really how we contribute to the university. And one thing that stood out to us is this line in the university mission statement, “to advance knowledge and learning at the highest level and to convey the products of its efforts to the world.” So that's part of our mission as Columbians, all of us.
And so that point about “conveying the products of our efforts to the world,” that story just won't be told unless we tell it. And, you know, it doesn't have to be us; it can be other communications vehicles. But we hope to create solutions that really tell that story in a way that, you know, captivates imaginations, and sometimes we'll find people get excited about the work their school's doing just from seeing it translated into a glossy full spread photograph with, you know, interesting typography and everything.
You know, that's the most important thing, I think. It's, you know, supporting the mission and supporting all of you.
Cassandra:
Excellent. So, I do see that the chat is very, very hot right now and live. I was not expecting that, so this is excellent, guys. Keep your questions coming. I'm also getting you guys opportunity to interact with Columbia Creative.
So, Heather, I see your question. Heather, would you like to ask your question? You can unmute yourself, you can be on video, or I'm happy to start the question off; you can ask them follow-up questions, Heather.
Heather:
Thank you.
Junie:
Hi, Heather!
Heather:
Well, actually Junie answered it already, that you use Quickbase as your software for your project management, which is really helpful.
Cassandra:
Are you familiar with that application?
Heather:
I am not; I'm not familiar with that, but I'm going to be looking it up. I’m over at Teachers College.
Junie:
Yeah, it's similar to Basecamp or, you know, different kind of project management systems. For us, you know, it was something that we implemented probably around two or three years ago, now, that has been a lifesaver, in all honesty. You know, just being able to track where jobs are. You know, we do our estimating and billing through it. And also just knowing what– Because we have a bunch of jobs on queue at any given time, just knowing where those are and what the expectations for that week are for the different people, the shareholders, you know.
Heather:
Yeah, that's wonderful. We do use Basecamp for some of our projects; we don't use it for everything. But always looking for things that, you know, could work a little bit better. We've run into some kinks with Basecamp, but I'll look into it, thank you.
Junie:
Yeah, we did a bunch of research on it, and ultimately we actually ended up choosing something that was very easy for everyone to learn and for everyone to implement. And also, you know, one of our account managers was very familiar with it, so it was helpful for the training-wise for all of us, you know.
Heather:
Wonderful, thank you so much.
Cassandra:
Excellent, thank you so much, Heather.
Dina, she wanted to know, are your fees listed anywhere?
Junie:
They are not because each job is very unique, and so primarily what we do is we estimate each job accordingly so we don't have a– You know, if somebody comes to us saying that they, you know, have a campaign, not knowing what that's going to actually entail, what the deliverables are, you know, you would price everything out separately, so, you know, it's–
Usually, the way we work, we'll have a different initial consultation, you know, you come to us, and then we will figure out what we feel like we need, what you need, and then we'll give you an estimate, and it's, you know, an estimated schedule for if you want to get started.
Geoffrey:
Yeah, I was just going to add to– I mean, you know, Columbia varies pretty wildly in terms of, you know, a small office or an entire school or college, and budgets can vary wildly. So what we typically do is just start with, you know, this is what we would typically produce.
If people are, you know, cost conscious, we might, you know, suggest different things. Like if it's a print job, we can use a generic paper stock and that can bring the cost down considerably. You know, if it's a photographer, we might get, you know, a younger photographer, possibly, and bring the cost down or do available light instead of studio lighting.
There's all sorts of things we can do to try to meet your budget, so it's not necessarily like a set price that we would give you but, you know, here's our estimate, but if you need us to meet within a certain budget, we can tell you how we can change the specs to make sure we meet it.
Cassandra:
Wonderful. Andrea Hale, did you want to ask your question? I don't know if she's still here.
Andrea asks, what type of turnaround time do you need for a project?
I think this is so important because I think that was kind of the underlying question that I had around Commencement, because I would imagine if you can somehow tie it into, are there the best times to make a large request? Because I can imagine around Commencement, and you can correct me if I'm wrong, is that, like, the worst time to ask for any projects to be done, or you guys can still kind of manage it?
Junie:
Yes and no. I think that, yeah, there are certain times of the year—Commencement being one of them—that's very– It's usually our busy season. That being said, when we are busy, we do have a group of casual officers that we work with who have been always assisting us, so we'll always bring people on if we need the extra help to take on projects and take on jobs. We're very, very lucky that we have a slew of people who've worked with us in the past or have worked with us presently also, who are primarily there to assist us when we're overbooked and over-, you know, oversaturated, so we try to take almost every project.
That being said, I can't always say we can, necessarily, but we try to, we try to accommodate, you know.
Cassandra:
That's good to know. So, what do you think the turnaround time would be like? Should it be like a week out, or does it really vary widely, or what's the rule of thumb?
Junie:
It varies rightly on what the project is. You know, something like an annual report, you know, we're going to require– That's probably more of a 12-week turnaround, opposed to something like an e-blast would be a one-week turnaround. I mean, it really depends on where, you know, what the project is, and what the deliverables are.
Cassandra:
Okay, wonderful.
Geoffrey:
Yeah, I would just throw in, too, I would just recommend if you even are thinking about a communications project or have some goals, just reach out to us as, you know, earlier rather than later because, you know, we can help you kind of fine-tune what the parameters of your communication might be.
Sometimes, it generally takes a few business days just to set up a meeting, have that introductory meeting, prepare an estimate. If we have to use vendors, we have to find out from the printer how long it will take to print something. And then once we prepare the estimate, our experience is it generally takes another business day or so for your team to kind of review the estimate and make a determination, or if we need to revise it.
And then when we actually start the clock would be when we have a signed estimate, so when Junie says like a week for a simple e-blast, that doesn't even include that sort of initial conversation.
But for reoccurring projects, you know, we're ready to go if we already, you know, we're expecting it or that kind of thing.
Cassandra:
Oh, that's excellent to know.
Jen Leach has a really good question. Jen, would you like to ask? I don’t know if Jen is around, but I will ask–
Jen Leach:
I am. I am, I am, I am.
Cassandra:
Okay, wonderful, yay!
Jen:
I don’t know if you wanted us to have our cameras off; I was sitting on a yoga mat.
Cassandra:
Yes, no problem. Hi, Jen.
Jen:
Hi, everybody.
Cassandra:
I just wanted to just give Jen a little shout out, if you don't mind, if I can embarrass you for a second. Jen is amazing. To say that Jen is amazing and one of our great supporters, and she shows up for us often and is– So, if you want to connect with Jen, she's very personable, very much approachable–
Jen:
[Laughing]
Cassandra:
So sorry. I just had to put you out there a little bit because I get to see you often, and some of our colleagues may not be familiar with you, but Jen is awesome. Thank you, Jen for being here.
Jen:
Yeah, if anyone else does faculty-facing comms, I'd love to talk to you. My question is about, specifically, web design and, you know, for those of us who manage our own websites, I know that there's an increased push on accessibility, and I'm not exactly sure what all the guidelines are and was curious, sort of, from your shop, what is the projection of, you know, when we all need to be 100% accessible, or what that even looks like.
Junie:
That I have to, honestly, contact like– It's more gonna be Sheri Whitley, and it's gonna be more her realm. I know that the time frame to make all the sites accessible, I would guess that she's gonna say “Immediately.” But that being said, you know, I don't know if there's a strict, you know, a time deadline on, kind of, that initiative. I know that it's been going on for a while, and I know that it's, you know, it's very important for any Columbia site to be accessible, just not only legally but also just ethically, you know?
Jen:
Right.
Junie:
So that being said, I don't know the exact timeframe.
Jen:
That being said, I should also specify, because we are doing our LGBTQ guide with you guys, which will be print edition and a PDF as well, so–
Junie:
So, PDF-wise, you know, for a PDF that's going to be going online, you know, we are at this point making the steps to make that accessible, so we pretty much are, you know– And I have to say that's something that we just started very recently, of having that consideration of making all the PDFs accessible.
You know, if they're going to be on a platform like Issuu or, you know, one of those online platforms where it's actually going to be a little bit of animation in them, those are not accessible, and by nature they're not accessible, and they're not going to be.
So if accessible is a necessity for your kind of PDFs, we need to– It's helpful for us to know that on the get-go on kind of what format it's going to be, because it's a little bit more time consuming for us to all do all the styling and tagging and the reading orders and whatnot, you know.
Jen:
Okay, thank you so much.
Geoffrey:
I was just going to add too, I might refer you to the web content accessibility guidelines, so we do use those for color scheme. I mentioned earlier in 2018 launching the Medical Center rebrand, working closely with that communications team, and that was a kind of a go-to resource where you can check things, like if I have white type on, you know, a certain color of blue value you know would I get a triple A rating or a double A rating in terms of contrast ratio, so there's things like that.
Junie’s point, too, we have been doing more digital PDFs. And right now, we've been actually recently helping the Knight Institute with just translating some of their figures and exhibits so that they're all accessible because we don't want people to have a PDF that wouldn't say, read the components or something like that. So it's definitely consideration, but for web specifically I think Junie’s absolutely right; Sheri’s probably the best person to start with.
Jen:
Yeah, and Sheri and Bernard have also been putting together design systems for webs, so it's going to be, you know, it's like that library of content that might be more useful, so going forward.
Cassandra:
Excellent, excellent. Actually, Mary has a follow-up question regarding accessibility. Hi, Mary.
Mary:
Hello.
Cassandra:
Mary, let everyone know how long you've been here; you've been here so long at Columbia University.
Mary:
1 year.
Cassandra:
So, Mary has joined Columbia University, like, right when the pandemic hit, so she doesn't have the privilege of being able to connect faces and voices and so on and so forth, so Mary I'm so happy I got to virtually meet you, I think like a week and a half ago or so.
Mary:
Yeah, absolutely, yeah
Cassandra:
Thank you for being here.
Mary:
Thank you so much; that was a great call. I'm so excited by this whole meeting right now, and I have a kabillion questions. Obviously, I know I can't answer that right now. So yes, I've been here a year and kind of only now am I settled enough to really start trying to create the communication plan that I want, that I think we need, and really starting to build on what I think might be lacking.
First, I was gonna– A couple questions about accessibility because I had those anyway. When it comes to PDF, PDF does provide its own internal system for making it ADA compliant and even checking itself. Do you all think that that is enough to then say, “Yes, this is accessible,” or do you not?
Junie:
Well, it's a great tool. I think that, you know, to initially start with that tool. So, you know, just really being conscious of when the PDF does it itself, a lot of times the reading order is off. You know, where the heads are, the order that a reader would read a document, like, might not necessarily make as much sense of what they perceive it to be, in a way. So, a human hand is actually probably necessary–
Mary:
Okay.
Junie:
–to kind of adjust those reading orders. I think that, you know, the manual contrast of colors is also– It's always going to default to having to check manually, so I think that that's one thing you always kind of have to do. And also, you know, the biggest part of when there's a lot of imagery and there's a lot of charts, you know, is just the naming. You know, making sure that you have the titles and naming them so that the readers
Mary:
Yeah, we kind of wipe that all off of it just to make it easier, which leads into my—so, thank you for that—which leads into a second question that I have also that's been killing me is infographics and making infographics ADA compliant. And I know this is very specific topic we can take offline, but I was wondering if you have experience in that, and is that, like, a service that you would provide? Could I say, “Can you help me make one that is accessible?”
Junie:
Honestly, it's not as easy as I wished it would possibly be.
Mary:
Right.
Junie:
A lot of infographics, and a lot of infographics that we create, we actually make as imagery, and we do the description of what the infographic is, you know, for the accessibility, making it as an image. Which is probably not the ideal route, but it is kind of a workaround. It's challenging, so it's depending on what your, you know, what your infographic is and whether or not a reader could actually, you know, go through that in a PDF and kind of determine its parts.
You know, we always create tables as tables within, like, InDesign so that it will be read as tables and things like that, but infographics are a lot more challenging. And I'm sure there's way better ways to do it that we have to keep on– We always have to keep learning on how, you know–
Mary:
I’ll email you on that one.
Junie:
–how to make it all work out.
Mary:
My other broader question is, I am kind of more within the Medical Center, so does that mean I reach out to groups at the Medical Center first for maybe things like what you do, or is it fine that I'm reaching out to you and having you help me with projects?
Junie:
You can reach out to us. So, you know, there are specific things that for the Medical Center, especially if it's web projects, we are going to recommend you go to the Medical Center because that’s not a service we– There's an approval process of things that would be— For different departments and different schools and institutes we're fine, but if it's for the Medical Center as a general whole, whatever we designed would go through the, you know, communications at CUIMC to make sure it's cool.
Mary:
Okay, okay, okay. Thank you so much.
Cassandra:
Wonderful. Thank you, guys, for answering Mary's questions. Another question is coming from Andrea. She wants to know, “When designing for print, do you manage the process with selecting and then managing the printer/milhouse as well?”
Junie:
Yes. We will handle the vendors and the print buyers, so it’s depending on what the project is. As I said before, there are certain projects that we partner with Print Services and use their services for the printing and fulfillment. There's other projects where, you know, we find that other printers have better strengths at certain, you know, certain techniques. We'll pick a printer determined on what the project is, and what kind of specialty they'll need on it, and then we'll handle the whole project up to delivery, you know.
Cassandra:
So in that case, where maybe Print Services gets involved, will they have to send their chart string separately to Print Services-?
Junie:
No.
Cassandra:
Or do you and Print Services work–? Okay
Junie:
We’ll work it all together.
Cassandra:
Got it.
Junie:
We try to be, like, kind of a one-stop shop in that manner that, you know, all the vendors, all the photographers, all the invoicing we're going to be doing on our ends, and then we'll just be, you know, having one kind of comprehensive bill.
Cassandra:
Got it. And another question that we have separate from the chat, and I'll get back to the chat, is, “What would you say makes an image visually compelling versus merely good?” So, if someone's working on something and they want to say, work on their social media, they want to do something pretty quickly, how can they make the distinction between that image that is just “All right, this is pretty decent” versus compelling.
Junie:
Well, you know, an image has a thousand words, which is actually always true. I think that the most important part of making a compelling image is that it actually, without words, tells a story, and that story has to have a focal point. And so I think it's important to have, like, a focus to it. It also has a little bit of a personality to a point where they kind of want to know more.
The idea of any kind of image is to bring somebody in that's going to make you click to your website to get more information and, you know, it's not always– We want to say an ideal day it’s always achieved, and it's not necessarily always achieved. But I think that the most important thing is to get something that's focused, that's—not focused as in clear, I mean just focused as having a, you know, having a point of view and also having a personality.
I think, you know, once you get images, a lot of times we're given a bunch of imagery that's like, you know, all these people lined up, you know, in front of a podium, you know, in front of a backdrop, and it's not necessarily the most compelling because it's seen always. You also want to have an image that doesn't look like a stock image. For me, it's very important to have, you know, your students being your students, your faculty members being your faculty members, your researchers being your researchers.
You know, there's so many generic stock imagery, which are—some of them are great and there's, you know, definitely no problem with some of them—but there's so many lifestyle shots that you don't want, you know, your medical research imagery to be the same one that's used by a different company on the subway somewhere else. You have to be very conscious of, you know, who you're trying to represent and what you're trying to represent, and for us, you know, you always want to represent the university in its best light. And so in that manner, you know, try to use imagery that's really going to do that.
Cassandra:
Right, right, thank for that–
Mary:
If I might interject one comment that's a plug to your group. It needs to be a quality image, you know–
Junie:
Yes.
Mary:
–of quality camera. You know, I mean literally in the value of whether it was printed or the camera used just the mere, you know, crispness of lines and proper lighting makes a great image versus just an okay image.
Junie:
I mean, that's the beauty of art direction.
Mary:
Right, right. You know, it’s huge; it really is huge.
Junie:
You know, it's also the beauty of having somebody who does this, you know, and who this is their expertise, you know, who's able to be on shoot, to be able to know, you know, that something's lit well. You know, with technology today, there's so many, you know, so many benefits of being able to capture every single moment on every single thing, but you don't necessarily need to show every single moment, every single thing if it's not good quality. And I think that that's, you know, key point of what we're trying to show people.
Cassandra:
Yes. Heather is curious and wants to know, “Approximately how many people are your full CU creative team?” For Columbia Creative.
Junie:
It ranges, and I have to say we've gotten much tighter in the last year, and I feel like that we are looking to expand that. Right now, we are a group of five. Five? Group of six, we're a group of six. We use a lot of our corral of casuals, so it's all casual officers who help us out on, you know, on a weekly and monthly basis.
Cassandra:
Good question. What would you say are the biggest challenges Columbia Creative experiences when an employee comes forward or a department wants to work with your unit? What are some of the biggest challenges you guys experience? Allow me to extend why this is an ask is in preparation in case there are certain things that people can avoid, possibly if at all. Like, how can they best prepare themselves when they're making their requests?
Geoffrey:
Yeah, I was gonna take this one. Yeah, so I think one of the biggest challenges is, strangely enough, communication. It's funny how a lot of us in this meeting are all communicators, and yet sometimes we'll find that we as communicators can sometimes struggle over, you know, that very thing. I think sometimes we'll have a meeting and maybe our colleagues try to be very helpful and maybe supply both a communication goal and a solution. And sometimes if it's, like you know, a pretty small job it can totally work to just execute something and move on, but really the best work comes from that collaboration where we really work together and identify our goals and solutions and move forward from there. So I think that that's probably the biggest challenge is just making sure we have a good dynamic, working relationship, open communication.
I mean, I spent years at an advertising agency before this, and one of the things that I noticed is that, you know, the creative team might work for weeks on a piece of communication and then pitch it to maybe a marketing manager or marketing VP. And those are weeks where you're not getting feedback.
So one of the great things about our office and being in-house is we can just reach out, you know, if maybe one component there was a question about it, we can shoot an email and say, “Hey, here's what we're thinking about this,” you know, maybe get some more details. And that collaboration just really tends to produce a superior product.
Cassandra:
That's really great to know. So in other words, no one should feel at all at odds with the ping-pong communication of going back and forth. They should kind of anticipate that, that a lot of ideas will be thrown around. Sometimes they'll have to just see it. They may have an idea and they have this vision in their mind, but then it might be just you need to just see it and that's okay.
Geoffrey:
Yeah, and I'd say, too, some of the best ideas come from, you know, everywhere. You know, it's like you can never anticipate. Some of the best ideas come in the revision process, some of them will come from our colleagues who have an idea about something, and no one knows your office or your area better than you, so. You know, it really does take that collaboration. One of the things I often tell designers in our team is, you know, you haven't done your job unless you've given your professional recommendation. So be sure to speak up, give your professional recommendation.
We might, you know, advocate not making a certain design choice or a certain communication choice, and we'll give you a full disclosure. But, you know, if you really insist and you think it's right for, you know, for your communication, then oftentimes we'll just go ahead and, you know, try to be supportive and, you know, with that disclaimer.
Cassandra:
Absolutely. What would you guys say is so– [Phone alarm sounds.] Oh, by the way, everyone, we're pretty much over the five minute mark. We have about, like, two minutes left. So if you have any other burning questions, feel free to put them in the chat. You are not obligated to show up and ask. I'm happy to ask on your behalf. I just like to give you the opportunity to ask directly.
Another question is, “What is the most underutilized service that your unit provides, that Columbia Creative provides?” What do you think is the most underutilized service? Maybe people aren't aware that it exists or maybe even that you'd hope that more people would utilize this particular resource or service.
Junie:
I think that one of the more underutilized is our Columbia ad services, which is pretty much what Marisol takes care of. The fact that she creates these marketing plans for different departments and different institutes. You know, she inevitably increases the click rate of so much of what she does, and I think that, you know, she's getting the data together and, like, kind of quantitatively being able to tell you how good your, you know, your campaign is doing. Not only does she post the ads, but she actually, you know, works with Geoffrey to find the best outlets, you know, the best platforms for your ads to appear at.
Another asset would be, really it's like what Geoffrey does in his creative strategy. He really works with the clients to figure out, you know, what the best route and what kind of communications would be the best for them. If you're a little bit unsure of who your audience is and how broadly your range would be, I think that that's one thing that we have that is a great asset to us and I think a great asset to others.
Cassandra:
That's excellent. Thank you, guys, so much. I have one surprise question. This is a wild question—wild card question. I'm actually very curious, and it's okay if it doesn't exist, but I'm curious to know, are there any plans for Columbia Creative to bring on any new forms of technology or ways of enhancing visual images that'll take Columbia Creative to the next level? Are there any thoughts around that at all?
That was a good wild card question, wasn’t it? [Laughs.]
Junie:
[Laughs.]
Geoffrey:
May I jump in while Junie’s thinking? But yeah, I mean, like Junie said before, you know, we're constantly learning, constantly, you know, staying up to date. So there might be a new software surface option out there that we're currently learning or, you know, maybe we'll actually use– Earlier this fiscal year we were using the Knight Institute's chart generation software so that they wouldn't have to go into that. We did, like, interactive graphs and charts and that was a new kind of project that we had not done up before this past year. So yeah, I think it's just always staying current and always, you know, taking the new projects and learning what we can and, you know, staying ahead of things.
Cassandra:
Excellent. Well, thank you, guys, so much. We made it to 3 p.m. Could you imagine? Like, it went by so quickly. Thank you, guys, so much. Columbia Creative, thank you, Junie, Geoffrey, and Marisol for showing up and just making yourself, you guys, available to let everybody know what resources you guys offer.
Everybody who's joined in, feel free to reach out. The replay will be made available. I'll be sending out an email about that shortly.
Thank you, guys, so much for attending. This was very, very much insightful. You guys, take care, and I will be reconnecting with you guys soon.
Mary:
Thank you.
Unidentified attendee #1:
Thanks, Cassandra.
Unidentified attendee #2:
Take care, everybody.
Cassandra:
Bye, everyone. Thank you for coming