Visual Designer

Dear new designer,

Hello!!! You might be pretty nervous to start doing design work that is going to be all around campus. Don’t worry, we both felt the same when starting this position and somehow we’re still here! And we’re here to help you out! There are mainly 3 things we wanted to let you know about this position.

1. This position involves doing designs for clients, not yourself.

This means that, even though you might have a brilliant idea for a design, the project belongs to the client and they have the final say. This doesn’t mean you can’t nudge someone along a certain direction or make suggestions if they need to develop an idea, but ultimately the clients have a vision for their entity and you have to respect that. Often I found that it’s not worth it to defend and fight for my own vision and in fact remaining on good terms with entities is going to be a big proponent of this position. Our biggest advice here is to TALK TO PEOPLE! We’ve had a few instances early on where we didn’t know what the client wanted and we had to make several revisions for the same project. What really helped me was to ask them to bring any examples/mood boards to the meetings or set up a collaborative Pinterest board.  We often used zoom and slack but you can also knock on doors and schedule in-person meetings! Talk about your or their examples and see what aspects they like/ don’d like. If they don’t, ask why and bring new ideas/examples. Alternatively, ask them to sketch it out. This should be a collaborative process and you want them to feel as invested in the project as you’re going to be!

2. You’re going to be working on a TONNN of projects.

Next, you should know that you will be working on lots of projects throughout the school year. I get it. You get caught up with the details and you have to be “perfect” in your designs but hear me out. Speed is a critical component here and hitting the deadline is just as important as anything else. Our advice here is to be realistic in the designs you are going to make. Not all clients submit their requests early enough and we sometimes have very quick turnaround time. Aiming for simple style helped me to keep up with the quality of our works. Work intentionally, but efficiently!

Additionally, there are projects in which you will get more creative freedom such as internal OCOMM projects, or ASUW-wide projects. You will be working with the OCOMM Director or the Media Manager as well as the other multi media coordinator and your interns. This is a great opportunity to experiment and push the ASUW brand further!

3. Know your boundaries and time.

While this may be a job that allows you to gain practice and experience as a designer, you should still always keep in mind that you are a student first, and a part-time employee second. Therefore, in a field in which you can iterate on your work forever, it’s gonna be really important to set boundaries between yourself and the work that you do for the ASUW. This means standing your ground, especially in the first couple weeks, and making sure people recognize that your time is just as precious as theirs. This also means making sure to answer Slack messages and conversations only when you are in the office. Things like this will help you avoid going over your max hours per week, and will allow you to have a better work-life balance throughout the year. 

4. Lastly, when in doubt, use design resources.

 There’s a shared drive on google drive that has a compilation of entities and the works throughout this past year. In addition you can search around for years prior and stuff like that. This is helpful because some entities will just want an update on a previous year’s design or just some tweaks.

All in all, it will take a little bit of time to get used to but you’ll do fine! Being in good communication with the OCOMM Director and the Media Manager will be really helpful in facilitating frustrations entities might have. Down below we’ve made some brief outlines of what each quarter will look like so you can start to gage the year in whole. It’s an amazingly flexible job and the people you meet here are amazing. Make this office your home and don’t be afraid to shake hands with lots of people! We can’t tell you how many amazing friends we’ve made here and we’re sure you will too. Best of luck!

Youjean (youjean@uw.edu) + Mahak (agdahl@uw.edu)

ASUW Google Accounts:

Login: Asuwcom2 Password: asuwasuw1

Login: Asuwcom5 Password: NewYou20#21

Slack:

Login: Asuwcom5 Password: ASUWocomm5

Login: Asuwcom2 Password: Asuwasuw1

Weekly To Do’s

Finish projects in a timely matter (2 weeks max).

Check design requests every time you come into the office.

Schedule meetings with entities.

Have meetings with OCOMM team to gain support and work on internal OCOMM projects.

Fall

Setting up relations with entities! Talk to people and get to know them. We started out by splitting up work, but gradually and naturally we began to take on certain entities that each of us had a continuous design relationship with. A lot of these first interactions can set the tone of your relationship with these people. 

Set up the design request system and request policies and talk with the OCOMM Director about how to enforce these policies and systems. It’ll be really important create this framework early on so that entities understand how to respect our time and communication. Design takes time! There will be a lot of events/requests earlier during the quarter but the end of the quarter will be a lot more relaxed as there are less events. 

Hire interns by November (talk with OCOMM director and OOI early on about when to do this, we conducted interviews in October. It’s important that you get the groove and pace of the office and design requests inline before you hire your interns, this is important so they feel like you know what you’re doing).

Winter

Maintaining relationships

Distributing workload with interns. Start off by giving new interns a general poster or event for an entity. Work with them by going to initial meetings with entity directors and interns. This will prep them for Elections stuff.

Beginning of EAC. In the past interns take on the EAC campaign and work closely with the EAC from start to finish about concept to designs. Give them options though, they might not want to JUST work on EAC and be super flexible with them. They aren’t getting paid so this should be a learning opportunity and not extra designers to do work you don’t want to

Spring

EAC. WOOO EAC wrap up

Wrapping up. WOOO you made it, the last bigger project you’ll be taking on is the Annual Report which can be a great wrapping up project to collaborate. This past year, the two designers and two interns worked together to complete the Annual Report, which was a wonderful way to end a collaborative year and see ASUW’s impact.

Fill out transition docs, you’ll be doing this doc at the end of April/early May

Director of OCOMM

We can agree that having interns was one of our highlights of the year. It’s been a great way to lighten our workload while also providing us with a mentorship opportunity; they say the best way to learn is to teach, and that is precisely what you do by providing someone with the opportunity of an internship.

We would suggest that you open an intern application as soon as you have your feet under you and know what’s expected of you in your role as Visual Designer.

Adobe Illustrator, Photoshop, InDesign, and Figma.

If you use special fonts make sure to outline them when sending a PDF! Other computers may not have them.

All ASUW posters are required to have the ASUW logo and the disability statement on them(for in-person events) as well as any other requested entity logos.

Disability statement – Nimbus Sans Regular, 11pt font size

Poster: 11″x17″ or 8.5″x11″ Some will request custom sizes. For example 24″x36″

3′ x 12′

Ask the entity what size stickers/buttons they want. Size will vary.

Facebook cover: 851px x 315px

Facebook profile: 180px x 180px