Final Direct Mailer Reflection

Well our class finally turned in our direct mailer assignments after many delays from snow.  So I can finally say, I’M DONE WITH THIS PART OF THE CLASS.

I feel like this direct mailer assignment has been more challenging to me than anything else we had done previously.  It was good that the instructor gave us so much freedom on this assignment but I always seemed to get stuck on forming an idea and having no clue how to incorporate my idea into Photoshop.

This is my mailer that was originally supposed to look like a book and emphasize academics.  Then I realized that even though the texture was a book cover it looked like the skin of a football.  So I changed my entire design concept and made it emphasize football instead!  I added football pictures that showed a community aspect and decided to have the words “Where dreams are made of crimson & cream” because I thought that would help point out the vibrant colors in these images.  This mailer would probably be sent to families of season ticket holders who have a child that is a prospective student.  This would show how the ENTIRE family could benefit from their child attending OU because of all the fun they would have on game days.

My original idea was to have this mailer look like an old train ticket and give the National Merit Scholars incentive to go to OU so they can utilize the amazing study abroad programs.  However, it did not turn out how I expected… and I decided to go for more of a postcard look.  I’m still focusing on study abroad and added a line with more information at the bottom.  Now that I look at my two final designs, I realize how similar they are and that was completely unintentional.

1. What were you asked to do?  We were asked to create two direct mailers for two different stakeholders.

2. How did you respond to what you were asked to do?  Well, I tried to get very creative.  I didn’t want my direct mailers to just look like something someone would throw in their stack of college mail collections.  I wanted someone to look at it and see that the choices of background, inspiration, etc. all had a central theme!

3. How did you react to what you actually did?  I think I had a lot of very creative ideas.  I just didn’t really have the skills to translate what I saw in my head into Photoshop.  So what I developed was not at all how I planned it!

4. Now go one level deeper: Why do you think your reaction was what it was?  I think I once again got too set in how I ‘thought’ the design could look good rather than making a good design.  I’m more happy with the football design mailer, which was a completely spontaneous design that I created after realizing the texture resembled a football.  So maybe I need to follow where the design process takes me instead of what I want to create initially.

• Do you or do you not feel yourself becoming more confident with the tools you are being asked to used?  Little by little.  I feel like I have the basic format and adjustment tools down.  I think I need to work more with altering images now!

• What are some differences you found between Photoshop and InDesign? Do you feel like you prefer either one?  I feel like in InDesign it is much easier to constantly shift images and adjust them.  It took me forever that you had to press CTRL + T in Photoshop to alter the size of images in Photoshop.  I think as of right now, I prefer InDesign because it was easier to make photos fit proportionally and that was just one of the things I struggled with in Photoshop.

• Is there anything you would do differently if you were to start over?  Don’t stick to one idea.  If an idea like making a direct mailer into an old train ticket isn’t working, it’s okay to abandon that idea and start fresh with something new!