MAILER INVITE PROJECT DAM TO DAM | IOWA’S DISTANCE CLASSIC
THE BEGINNING The first part of this project consisted of choosing an event, three concepts and doing research. I chose the event Dam to Dam, a half marathon that takes place in the Des Moines area. I wanted to achieve the concept of health and fitness by designing a clean and crisp looking invite that encourages runners to use activities such as the Dam to Dam road race to promote a healthy lifestyle. I also wanted to emphasize the change of scenery during the race, since it begins in the country and ends in the city. From that concept, I designed three different invites. I ended up choosing the invite with the Accordion fold to work towards the final.
REVISED SKETCH
FINAL SKETCH
The biggest flaw in my first sketch was the Des Moines skyline cut out being upside down on one side. To solve this problem, I created a handout insert with a clever “dam” pun. I also designed a map behind the highlighted landmarks. In the end; however, I decided that these two elements were unnecessary. Instead of Creating the handout, I incorporated the copy from it into the landmark map.
I really struggled transferring my design onto the computer. The biggest obstacle with this step in the process was figuring out how I wanted to design the inside of the invite. I found it difficult to create a detailed map and I couldn’t decide how to design the icons. I also needed work on my “Contact Us” spread.
ROUGH FINAL First, I tried using a Wicom tablet to hand draw each icon. That worked for the corn, but was not successful for all five landmarks. Next, I drew each landmark, scanned it and used Image Trace to bring it in to Illustrator. I finally achieved the look I was aiming for.
FINAL
ENVELOPE SKETCHES
ENVELOPE FINAL