This week we were asked to begin creating direct mailers for OU Recruitment services. With that also came the task of identifying our first stakeholder for the direct mailer itself. First off I must say that I had no idea what a direct mailer was and had to google around for a while until I finally came across some examples. Then I immediately regretting not keeping a single one of the probably 100 I received from campuses across the nation when I was still in high school. Once I tackled figuring out what the direct mailer was, though, I immediately felt the ideas flowing. I started to think of what drew me and my friends to schools before coming up with a design idea. You could say that I worked backwards in that I designed, or came up with a draft in my head of what I wanted it to look like and then was able to sit down and say “ok, who would this draw in and how can I hone in the persuasiveness a little bit more to that target audience?” Then I was able to pinpoint my stakeholder and really grasp what I wanted to do.
While that was all fine and dandy I was forced to rekindle my relationship with PhotoShop even though I still think I have PTSD from Intro to Ad and PhotoShop. I cannot say enough how much I despise the application. I would rather use Illustrator because other that the photo designing itself, it does the same thing in a much more user-friendly way. Also, in today’s world of technology I can think of 5 photo editors that can do the same thing that PhotoShop does and easier! One of my friends can literally take a person out of a photo and put a new one in in under 3 minutes all from her phone.
Despite the battle with PhotoShop I think that I have a good base for my direct mailer. I look forward to getting feedback and figuring out where to improve. I can’t say that I look forward to more work with PhotoShop but I hope to get better so that I can find a practical use for it in the future.
I have attached my first draft of the Direct Mailer below!
