Women's Conference: Getting Beyond the Stereotypes

I designed promotion for InterVarsity's Women's Conference, that I'm planning to attend this weekend! There was alot of back and forth, trying to find an image that appeals to strong women. Frankly, it's hard to say 'women's' without all the clichés of pink and purple and swirls and flowers. (Or putting an actual woman, since we didn't want to communicate a particular ethnicity, age or body-type.)

In trying to avoid the pure women = pretty pretty princesses idea, the client put forth using red heels on the side of the road. A women who's left her constraints (the heels) behind to start a new journey, she said. Great concept! The problem is, we then veer into the other unwanted stereotypes of women: the prostitute, or the victim. Red heels on the side of the road? Has someone been kidnapped? How do we portray the idea of strong, grown-up, godly women?

Eventually, we settled on using great vintage suitcase with the themes of the conference as travel stickers, to get the idea of journey, of following your call. Even then, we struggled to find an image with the right road--one that would be green and inviting with possibilities. And we needed the right perspective and size, looking ahead into the distance but seeing the suitcase and stickers clearly. We ended up buying a suitcase and doing the photo shoot ourselves... in brown, drab, icy, Wisconsin March. Uh-oh.

Photoshop skills to the rescue! Photoshop doesn't mean I can do anything, but I was relieved to find I could make spring come sooner. After a long process we got something fun, evocative and (hopefully) appealing to lots of women. It takes a lot of work to look this good:

Chapter Building Training Videos

I've been what I describe as the 'imbedded' designer with the committee that shapes and tests new strategies for building bigger, stronger and more evangelistic chapters--chapters that area healthy and growing. Each year I prepare materials for their staff training in June--posters, worksheets, diagrams--but this year was a little different. This summer, on a few projects, I became a producer and communications coordinator not just a graphic designer. 

The committee had a few great concepts from the previous year's Alpha test and wanted give the Beta test staff a way to share concepts with their students. So, they asked if 2100 would film all of their training sessions. Well, that's where I step in and help by saying: what are students actually going to watch? What do we actually have man-hours to do? I discovered the trainers would be coming in a day ahead of the training. With the video team, we decided to have them prepare and record 5 min trainings on the topics they thought were most important. It was alot to ask of trainers-- taking their 30 min segments down to 5 min, but as InterVarsity staff, they are all talented storytellers. In one morning, while preping other materials for the training, we recorded sessions with stories and simple tips on how to structure your communications and interactions. Videos were on new student outreach, casting vision, raising up leaders, etc...and my favorite--how to do great follow-up. 

Follow-up is one of the places we often fall down on the job. We might get a lot of contacts at all our beginning-of-the-year events, but then students are too burned out or feeling too timid and awkward to actually contact and befriend the students that expressed interest. Sam's story reminded me that God works through the risks we take--and that while--yay!--most people are interested when they sign up, even the ones that seem not to be are people, just like me, who can become great friends, not to mention great followers of Christ. 

Our intern Adam Joe worked hard to film and edit these, and did a great job. I'm so excited we have communications that will take these valuable concepts to a student level, in a compelling and easy way. On top of academics, students won't have to watch 6 hours of workshops. They can watch a 5 min clip together and discuss.

And I had fun story boarding and art directing the opening animation. :) 

See all the videos in the chapter building vimeo album, or watch Sam's here.

Brand New Brand: Study Abroad

Guess what? InterVarsity now has a ministry for study abroad! This new department helps InterVarsity students connect with the IFES movement where they are studying, holds retreats for them over breaks and helps them think about sharing their faith while abroad. InterVarsity is also partnering to have an actual study abroad program to Paris and Barcelona! 


As many of you know, I studied abroad in Germany and was involved there with our sister movement Studenten Mission Deutschland (SMD). The SMD students and staff  (love you, Reiner and Martina!) helped me find an apartment, and a church. I joined their Bible study, I attended their shows, I went on retreats, I spoke more German with them than anywhere else. They made my study abroad ten times better. So, naturally, I was über-excited to work on Study Abroad's communications.

A brand new program needs a...ahem...brand. But first they wanted to recruit a few students--so I helped them with an Ireland retreat e-brochure. Then they wanted to explain their mission. 2100 video team member David Hui traveled to Rome, Barcelona, and Paris to do interviews, and I art directed and supervised our summer intern Ryan Holmquist as he designed an opener and titles for the video, and an explanatory brochure.  

Meet Diana, Paul, and Ingrid, three American students serving and sharing faith while studying in Europe:
  Studying Abroad As Mission from InterVarsity twentyonehundred on Vimeo.
 As we worked on the brochure and video, we realized the logo Study Abroad had commissioned from an outside designer wasn't in line with InterVarsity colors, and wasn't very easy to work with--dusty pink, anyone? In fact all the missions department logos were all a little off. I talked with each department's leaders and made small changes to the whole collection, so it looks more 'InterVarsity.' It's no easy task, but we're working on all our ministries looking like a recognizable family. The changes are small--from black to navy outlines, for example--but make a difference in looking authentic together.

Now Study Abroad has a video, and will soon have a brochure, web and social media headers, and e-brochures for their gatherings. They look like a (newest!) member if a trusted family. Slowly, we're building a whole new brand. And a brand new way to reach the world!

World Student Day : Handbook

For World Student day, I recruited a few staff to help me work on materials that would help staff plan gatherings with their students, without adding 'just another thing to do' to their Back-to-School plates. We wanted to remind staff that praying for students and staff in other countries could help their students know God better and understand the global church. Staff Geoff Gentry, Kodi Thompson-Moore, and Jordan Kologe did most of the writing, and I designed our handbook--about 15 pages.

On seeing our handbook, IFES staff in Oxford said “Wow – this is a great resource, and beautifully designed! Well done.You’ve inspired us to think about how we might adapt this as a resource for the wider IFES family..."   

Drew Smith, a staff Texas (who helped with editing!) said:
"I got the World Student Day mailer, wow, that turned out great! My wife got it in the mail, didn't know I'd seen it, and brought it over to show me because she thought it was so stellar." 

On top of these items, we'll have posts on the InterVarsity blog, tweets and facebook posts to promote the day. I hope you'll join us October 18th, and those of you who tweet, tweet #IFESWSD and let us know you prayed!

World Student Day! : Video

Did you know InterVarsity is a part of a world network of student movements?
 
The International Fellowship of Evangelical Students (IFES) has member movements in 150 countries and InterVarsity is the American movement. (Some of you will remember my visit to our IFES sister movement in Central Asia.) World Student Day is IFES’ annual day of prayer and celebration for all that God is doing through its member movements. On that day we — students, staff and ministry partners — pray for students around the world.

My job this spring/summer was to devise a plan and create materials to promote World Student Day among our students and staff. I consulted our staff, recruited a team, and worked with the IFES office in Oxford. We wrote and designed a handbook, a video, and other smaller materials to share the vision with students. Two of our summer interns, Lauren Burchard and Jeff Son, worked on the World Student Day video with me as one of their main summer projects. We wrote the script, they looked through hours and hours of 2100 footage, edited, recorded, picked music, edited some more. It was my first time producing a video with a spoken script, and without a long-term video staff partnering! (I've produced mostly ambient videos for stages backgrounds.) After much hard work, I hope the video will inspire you:

 
World Student Day 2013 (Oct.18th) from InterVarsity twentyonehundred

On seeing the video, the IFES wanted to use it as the official world student day video world wide! Of course we said yes! Responce: "Wonderful! It's like Christmas come early! When can we start using it?!”

We made versions with French and Spanish subtitles, and so far, Staff from Brazil and Lithuania have asked to make their own versions, too. By making this, we've been able to bless all our sister movements and IFES national--I hope that excites you as much as it excites me! The videos have been viewed in 111 countries so far, check out the map:

So friends...will you join in praying on October 18th?
Invite your church too! Write it on your calendar now & sign up to see prayer requests at: ifesworld.org/worldstudentday