Lesson 9 Reflection

Before leaving for Spring Break, my PR Publications course asked me to identify two stakeholders of my choosing and design direct mailers tailored to those stakeholders. For my first stakeholder, I chose high school National Merit Scholars who are considering the University of Oklahoma’s National Merit Scholar program. For my second stakeholder, I chose parents of incoming freshmen who might be interested in joining Sooner Parents club.

Spring Break was nice because it allowed me time to take a step back from my designs and come back with a fresh, new perspective on my work. This gave me a clearer view of the adjustments that needed to be made as well as new ideas. I’ll admit, I became a little overwhelmed as I started in on the editing phase of the direct mailers. I encountered difficulty with Adobe Photoshop and was a little rusty after having not used it for a week. However, with a lot of patience and a lot of time, I feel confident with my finished product as well as my Adobe Photoshop skills. I think the biggest difference between my experience with Photoshop and InDesign is simply familiarity. I spent more consecutive time using InDesign, which made the design process a little easier. I found myself having to re-learn the tools in Adobe Photoshop which made Design Project #2 more tedious. Looking back on this project, I would have spent more time learning the basic functions of Adobe Photoshop prior to beginning the project. This would have made the editing process much easier.

All in all, I am really happy with how these direct mailers turned out though. I think they speak directly to my target stakeholders and provide valuable information to them as well!