Print & Digital Craftswoman Courtney Hendricks
Queer Film Festival
Tabloid Poster
About the Project
What I Learned
The Queer Film Festival is a three day, annual event
Things change. A lot. I had a tough time adjusting my
hosted by the University of Oregon’s Cultural Forum.
work to keep up with the client’s ever-changing schedule
QFF showcases work by the LGBTQ community’s actors,
information. I learned that I probably should have allowed
writers, and directors.
more negative space in the designs for those inevitable
My Role With a logo already established from the previous year, it was my task to create a visual identity for this year’s event. I wanted it to be unique and recognizable, but not clash with the overall branding that our audience had become accustomed to. Essentially, my job was to get the word out about the festival (which, on campus, is usually best achieved via print materials), and to provide schedule information at the festival itself, which I decided would be best achieved with printed programs.
last-minute changes. And while this job sounded like a pretty straightforward one, it was difficult to decide on esthetics because my options seemed so wide open. I knew I wanted something colorful, but certainly no gender-specific colors. I also considered using a photo from one of the previous years’ movies, but choosing just one photo to represent an event that was so diverse just didn’t seem right. The pattern I finally chose started out as a fun side project, (which coincidentally met all of the needs for this project), so I chose it for the background of the designs.
PROJECT Queer Film Festival
ROLE Graphic Designer
DELIVERABLES Tabloid Posters, Handbills, Tri-Fold Programs, Newspaper Advertisement
PROGRAMS / TOOLS InDesign for general designs, Illustrator for pattern graphics
DATE February 2013
Handbill
Programs given out at the event
Erb Memorial Union Website
Higher-fidelity homepage
About the Project The Erb Memorial Union is the student union building at the University of Oregon. My office is currently rebranding the union to accompany its renovation happening this winter. Part of our rebranding is the redesigning and restructuring of its current website (designed in flash, circa 1990s). The EMU Website project is huge and still ongoing, but I thought I’d feature some of my higherfidelity mockups and explain my process.
I sent out a survey to stakeholders via email and social media to get us started. The results weren’t too bad, as we received a few hundred responses. This data gave us a solid direction towards what our users absolutely needed from the website, as well as what was (and wasn’t) working on the current site. From there, I began wireframing and making general decisions informed by our data. Because of a tight deadline, we’re currently tackling testing and creating higher-fidelity designs at the same time (which, I’m learning, is a mistake). Our
My Role
testing specifically includes some card sorting exercises
Since the site is still being built it’s difficult to talk about
on-one, interactive wireframe testing to determine
my role, but I can at least describe what I’ve done so far.
generally what isn’t working.
to determine our information architecture, and one-
PROJECT EMU Website
ROLE Web Designer, UX Designer
DELIVERABLES Responsive Website
PROGRAMS / TOOLS Photoshop for mockups, Axure for UX wireframes, pencil & paper for wireframes
DATE August 2013
Detail of a directory page
What I Learned I was fortunate enough to work with a UX professional on campus who taught me a bunch of tricks and tips on usability testing. At the time, I was also reading Steve Krug’s books on testing (Don’t Make Me Think and Rocket Surgery Made Easy) which were also a huge help. Aside from learning the basics of user experience, I also learned more about my workflow for designing responsively. There are so many considerations that must be made when designing for mobile devices, and it wasn’t until I had worked on such a big project that I Interactive Axure wireframes
realized how complicated that process could get.
Erb Memorial Union Planner
About the Project The Erb Memorial Union is the student union building at the University of Oregon. In an effort to increase awareness about the great programs & activities offered
figuring out their class schedules and what student groups they might want to join.
My Role
there, our office decided to make student academic
I collaborated with another designer in this project, with
planners for the 2013-2014 school year. The planners
the work split pretty evenly. First, we came up with the
have advertisements for various EMU Programs placed
general organization and the content we wanted to
at the beginning of every month to inform students that
include. Intuition and personal experience told us that
these programs exist and what they do. Our primary
the EMU is an extremely confusing place to navigate
audience for this project was incoming freshman who
(even for upperclassmen). This is why I designed a room
are new to campus and looking for ways to get involved.
directory and QR code link to a mobile-friendly map
The planners were handed out for free to freshman
of the building. The planners also included: a monthly
during Summer Orientation, a time when they’re usually
calendar view, ample room for notes, an EMU Ad before
PROJECT EMU Planner
ROLE Graphic Designer
DELIVERABLES Student Academic Planners
PROGRAMS / TOOLS InDesign
DATE July 2013
every month, a place to fill in your class schedule before every term, and of course the weekly spreads with lots of room to write in homework info, etc. The weekly spreads included basic information like holidays, but also events happening in the EMU that freshman might not necessarily hear about. Our designs stayed within the EMU style guidelines that our office had agreed upon before this project began.
What I Learned I learned a great deal about printing and designing for print with this project. Our measurements had to be exact, taking into account where the binding and bleeds would be. For cost reasons, we chose to do a two color print job (black/grey and a pantone green) on an offset printer, which actually freed up some money in our budget to spend on a nice card stock for the cover. We were also very lucky to get to work with the people at UO Printing & Mailing Services ( those guys have a tough job, so I’ll openly suck up to them).
Glidden Paint PROJECT Glidden Paint
ROLE Graphic Designer
DELIVERABLES Glidden campaign book, Keynote presentation
PROGRAMS / TOOLS InDesign for the book, Keynote for the presentation, and countless paper & pencil sketches
DATE March 2013
About the Project Every year, the American Advertising Federation has a competition (the National Student Advertising Competition)between colleges to see who can create the most effective ad campaign. This work was not published, but rather presented to judges as a sort of mock campaign. I was a part of the University of Oregon’s
of the group, I also designed and helped come up with creative executions, and I contributed to conversations about the direction of our campaign and strategy. I also designed a Keynote presentation and posters which we used at the regional competition.
What I Learned
chapter, where we placed third at regionals. Last year,
I have never received more experience with working in
our client was Glidden Paint and as the designer of the
a group in my life. That’s the best way I can explain it. I
group, my main task was creating a campaign book that
was able to work with sixteen talented teammates which
displayed our creative executions, research, strategy,
was empowering and instructive, but also chaotic and
media plan, and budget.
at times incredibly unproductive. But we learned. After working as a whole in a somewhat democratic system,
My Role My role was primarily book design, but as a member
we split up into small groups (creative, strategy, media) which proved to be far more powerful and effective.
PNW Art Annual
Handbill
About the Project
Northwest” theme of the competition.
The Pacific Northwest Art Annual is an annual, juried
What I Learned
art competition that is organized by the University of Oregon’s Cultural Forum. The winner of the competition
This project had a very fast turnaround, so what I
has their work purchased by the University who then
struggled with most was making a quick, definitive
adds it to their permanent collection.
decision on strategy. I finally chose the headline, “Showcase Your Art at UO!” (on the other side of the
My Role My initial role was to design handbills with a call to action to get artists to submit their work to the competition. Then I created tabloid posters for the show itself and the reception where they announce the winner. For esthetics, my options were pretty open, although the client did want me to emphasize the local, “Pacific
handbill) as my way of targeting Art Students to get involved. I thought emphasizing that their work would be in a show would be a good way to peak interest. As for the photos, I frequently shoot film photography as a hobby so I had a bunch of forest shots on hand. The client liked the direction (very PNW), especially since they were trying to get more photography submissions that year.
PROJECT PNW Art Annual
ROLE Graphic Designer, Photographer
DELIVERABLES Handbills, Tabloid Posters
PROGRAMS / TOOLS InDesign for the designs, Photoshop for a few image edits
DATE November 2012
Tabloid Poster
OR Magazine iPad Article
About the Project
My Role
OR Magazine is the first student-run iPad magazine at
My responsibilities at OR were to design a few interactive
the University of Oregon (and in the country). This “digital
article spreads (or, as Adobe calls them, “stacks”), shoot
magazine” focuses on human-interest stories about the
photos for various stories, and to get the word out
state of Oregon. We produced the second issue using
about OR by designing a one-page responsive website.
Adobe’s Digital Publishing Suite which, at the time, was
For the sake of brevity, I’ve included my favorite stack
only a year old and still being developed. Our design
that I designed and shot many of the photos for. The
team actually came in one day to find that the interface
concept for the article was to interview a variety of
had changed and additional tools had been added.
Portland “creatives” and ask them about their jobs and their creative processes. I pitched the idea to our staff,
PROJECT OR Magazine- iPad Magazine
ROLE Designer, Photographer
DELIVERABLES Interactive Article Stacks (Pages)
PROGRAMS / TOOLS Adobe’s Digital Publishing Suite, InDesign for page layout/interactivity, Photoshop for image editing, Illustrator for drawing buttons/shapes
DATE May 2012
who thought it would be a good addition, and I found two friends who were as excited as I was to help with photos and video.
What I Learned This was the first time I had ever designed for interactivity, specifically for a mobile device. I was hooked. I was able to experiment with a new format for design (landscape & portrait for the iPad) and I learned about the design considerations that are necessary for interactive design, such as: “Is this button big enough for someone on an iPad to click?” or “Is it obvious that this text scrolls?”
OR Magazine Website
About the Project
PROJECT
OR Magazine is the first student-run iPad magazine
OR Magazine Website
at the University of Oregon (and in the country). This
ROLE
“digital magazine” focuses on human-interest stories
Web Designer, Photographer
about the state of Oregon. I had many responsibilities for this publication, but this page explains the onepage responsive website I worked on.
Photoshop for mockups and bg
My role for this project was to work with a frontend coder to create a website for OR Magazine. We decided that the site should serve a few basic functions: explain what OR is, provide a download link to the apple store, show off its beautiful new cover, and provide ways of connecting people to the magazine, either by social media or email. I didn’t see any reason we should make some huge, full-blown website (especially because we didn’t want to give away any of our magazine content), so we decided on a simplistic approach.
What I Learned was
maybe
One page responsive website
PROGRAMS / TOOLS
My Role
This
DELIVERABLES
my
second
time
designing
responsively, so to say that I learned a lot would be an understatement. I came to realize that minimal is always better with responsive design, and since I had some coding knowledge, I was able to make better design choices because I knew what problems my developer would be encountering.
image editing, Canon T2i DSLR for the image
DATE July 2012
Fender Guitars
About the Project
double page spread focuses on a different stage in a
This project was a class assignment to create a print campaign for a brand of my choice. I worked with a friend who wrote the clever copy in the designs. We chose Fender because we both had a relationship with the brand and we wanted our message to mirror that sentimental relationship.
role
was
a forest, to being shaped into an actual instrument, to being used by a musician. The text mirrors this concept and tone, while also touching on the fact that Fender is an American-made guitar company, and that the people who cut down those trees, make the guitars, and buy the guitars are all Americans.
My Role My
guitar’s life: From starting out as just a piece of wood in
What I Learned primarily
design,
although
I
did
brainstorming and strategy with my partner as well. We both thought that stories are easy ways for people to connect, so our campaign followed that strategy. Each
This project was a great way for me to think about strategy and to focus on how the message of a campaign should be consistent throughout all of its materials.
PROJECT Fender Guitars
ROLE Photographer, Graphic Designer
DELIVERABLES Three, full-spread advertisements
PROGRAMS / TOOLS InDesign for general designs, Photoshop for image processing
DATE January 2012