If you want to be the face of TheU: You better learn how to smile.

Esthetics

If you want to be the face of the student union, you better learn how to smile. I'm talking about what you put your name on. What you connect to your cause, what you brand.

The most obvious during this campaign would be the posters. I was
really excited about the campaign for that reason. Pumped to see new
ideas splashed across a plain white sheet of letter paper. I've yet
to be impressed. Not one poster has drawn me in, interested me, or
even just caught my eye.

In my opinion MacGillvray and Clarke have the best of the bunch. They
have a few full colored, graphic, photo and text incorporated posters.
Although sitting in the lounge on 4th floor of the SUB I just noticed
a blue poster, and it's a good thing the background is drowning out
the font because MacGillivray is missing an L!

Pat and Scott have a good idea sticking with the same photos on
their posters and website, really nailing the images home. But on a
lot of their posters only one third of the page is filled out. Which
doesn't make sense to me because it would cost the same to print
a full page of colour. It looks like someone just pressed print on the
website. Using familiar images is important but you need to spice it up.
Keep it fresh. A solid 8.5 by 11 with a splash of colour would definitely
add a spark.

It's good to see the sub-election candidates taking some risks.
Trying to add humor, images, and interesting stats to their posters.
I'm not trying to rip on the presidential candidates just trying to
communicate the need for a professional front.

I think MacGillivray and Clarke made a mistake launching their
election video. The video is posted on youtube.com and runs for about
3 minutes. Commercials are barely 45 seconds these days, I've still
yet to find the attention to watch the whole MacGillivray Clarke video.
There are some good ideas but it's not catchy, not interesting. If they
took that video cut out half the pictures and changed the transition from 5 seconds to 0.5 seconds, used only 5 of the most powerful words and
added a shot to their faces between each photo the video would be a
much more captivating promotional tool.

My point here: if you want to be the face of the union, you gotta be
on your game. You don't have to know how to write a website, edit a
video or design a poster. But you do have to be able to open your
eyes and say, "This is crap, we're not putting our name on it." Or,
"This is stellar, make the background blue add TheU's logo and send it
to print." Image is huge. Our number one means for communication?
Our eyes. We see everything all the time. Present yourself and our
union in a professional manner, always.

To prove these comments and the ease involved in executing them, I
challenged myself to make my own election video. I allowed myself
only 30 minutes. Total 45 minutes from initial idea to posting on
youtube.com.



I understand I'm into design, but I only started playing
with video footage in August. The programs do the work. It's easy,
especially with our good friend Google making tutorials so easy to
access.

Presidential Slates: had I not had this position I would have been
happy to put together designs for you. Because I write for this blog,
I can't do the work for you but if you have questions, want a little help or just some guidance, ask me. I love this stuff.

Until next time,
sf