New and existing faculty of UNC Charlotte will now have all of the important information in one convenient brochure or sheet. I worked with a committee to create a helpful guide with “if-then” situations that faculty members might come across with students.

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Typical “if-then” charts contain the information in a box with an arrow, making it cluttered. I wanted to make it clear and simple, since it will be a reference that faculty will refer back to on occasion. I made all of the important programs, websites, office locations and phone numbers bold; so it is easy to skim through to find the information you need. On the back I also put a list of the same information so it is easily accessible. I wanted to make it look like personal notes, and have a reference to education.

Brochures were printed and handed out at the new faculty orientation, and the sheet shown will be a PDF sent out to all of the faculty. I thought it would be a good idea to both, because it is cheaper to send out a PDF to all of the UNCC faculty, and then they can easily print it themselves.

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The current College of Computing at UNC Charlotte’s website was created about seven years ago, so it is in desperate need of a redesign. I searched around to find out what other universities were doing with their subpages for colleges and departments. Blogs and newsfeeds are becoming hot, so I knew I wanted to have that in there somewhere (they also help webpages come up higher up on the search engines). Another trend is having large images that change every few seconds with a short description. Movement and images are the main things that catch someone’s attention right away.

I started by reorganizing the site’s infrastructure to be more user friendly. I tried to keep it in line with the main UNCC’s web design and colors, so you can still tell you are at UNCC. It will be a definite improvement to the current CCI’s webpage, which a technology based college really needs to be up with current standards.

411fit is a free website dedicated to providing tools and information needed to maintain a healthy lifestyle that will go live to students and faculty of UNCC near the end of August.

They wanted some banner ads to go in the website to advertise the 411fit features, UNCC benefits related to health/fitness, and a green tips section.

The 411fit web design is photography based, so I grabbed some free stock photos to work with. I wanted each section to have a distinct design while keeping a general theme and fit nicely with the existing web design. Since the 411fit and UNCC sections had logos, I thought it was appropriate to create a simple logo for green tips.

The Ph.D. Program in CCI wanted something to mail to other schools to advertise to other students. CCI has a bulletin board covered with posters from other schools advertising different programs, so I took a look there to see what other schools were doing. Most of them are badly designed with too much information and clutter. I noticed a couple had a “take-one” pad varying in sizes, which I thought was a good idea.

"take-one" pad

We would be mailing the Ph.D. brochure with the poster, so I knew they had to match. I wanted the “take-one” card to work like a business card; so I made it the smallest that the printer recommended, with the important information of the name, tag line, and website. That way students don’t have to write the information down, they can just take one, and hopefully they are more likely to visit the website.

Once the materials were ready, I worked on finding the top 250 national computer science universities and the top 200 international universities. I used USNews.com’s list of American’s Best Colleges 2008, and then had to go to each school’s website individually to find the department/school name and address. Talk about a long grueling process, but I got it done in a few days!

With very limited budget and supplies, and having to put 100 invitations and programs together by-hand, I was able to come up with a creative solution. I had to figure out how to visualize cybercrime, the main topic of the conference. I created a mini police crime folder with Staples’ ivory cover stock, and plain copy paper for the mini pieces of paper inside. I stapled the “News Media Release” over the longer sheet of conference speaker bios in the invitation, and the same for the program’s schedule and speaker bios. In the invitation I left the hand-drawn map (with directions on the backside) loose so you could take it with you.

Invitation with map

program

I chose the fonts Handwritten-Dakota and American Typewriter to make it look like an authentic police letter, I even added a case number from the date. If you notice the “Victims” are IP addresses to relate it to cybercrime.

I think I just put in the craziest work week ever. I had to get programs ready for two events. And it’s not just the design files I had to worry about being ready on time, it was waiting on content, and then having to print them out from our laser printer and cut them out using my poor little hand and X-acto, and then putting them together.

I made 150 - 2 page - programs for the Annual Awards Dinner and 300 – 14 page programs for the Visualization of the World Symposium. I wanted to put in overtime to make sure they were finished on time, but by 5:00pm I was ready to pass out, from putting all of my energy into them.

I got an award! Read my former professor’s speech:

The first award goes to one of the most persistent, hard working students we have seen in several years. Her over all excellent performance is particularly noteworthy because we remember her as one always open to criticism - yet never satisfied to only do what is ‘expected’ - but to go beyond.

She listens carefully (usually with a smile- or even a laugh). Internalizes comments, addresses whatever weakness there might be - and finds a determined ‘way of her own’ to explore the challenge - and to ultimately solve the problem in a smart and effective way.

So in recognition of her fine creative work and leadership in the graphic design concentration - and her current successful move to the professional field here on campus - We honor Amy Bendig (now Henty) for a job well done. Congratulations.

Eldred Hudson, Associate Professor

I got a job!
I just put in my first 40-hour work week. I got my first full-time graphic design job! I had been freelancing for UNC Charlotte’s College of Computing and Informatics since October 2006, and they decided to hire me full-time. I am their only graphic designer, so I am sure it will take a few months for everything to smooth out. I will be in charge of creating promotional materials for prospective students and donors, event branding for on-going conferences and events (invitations, programs, posters and name tags), announcements for TVs, photographing events, hopefully redesigning their website, and anything else they throw my way.

I just completed my first group gallery show at Hart-Witzen Gallery in NODA. Our group decided on the name PRIMED, because we are primed and ready to go! The group consisted of Laura Stokes, Lydia Ko, Maggie Ngo, Justin Bobbitt, Paola Mateos, James Raven, Melissa Root, and myself; with the help of our professor, Eldred Hudson.

A lot of hard work and time went into making the show happen, but it was well worth it in the end. Our professors told us we had one of the best Senior BFA graphic design shows from UNC Charlotte and the best turnout. Some of us from the group distributed postcard invitations to every graphic design firm we could find in Charlotte. That was an adventure in itself.

My graphic design professors told me that they were very proud of me and how much I have grown since I first entered the program. I learned so much from doing this as a group. You can only count on yourself, and don’t even spend time worrying that everyone isn’t doing their fair share, just stuck it up and do it yourself or it will never get done. Some people are just not good team players. But in doing it as a group, I grew stronger from it. I’m not saying I would do it again, but maybe if I get to choose people I know I can rely on.

It was very exciting to see everything come together, the turnout, and simply seeing my name on the gallery wall. It was also a bit strange seeing my graphic design work displayed under gallery lights. It went by so fast, and before we knew it, it was 10:00pm and we had to take everything down. What an exhausting, overwhelming day!

View more pictures from the show