Making History Worth Sustaining
Creating a Capital Campaign Brochure for the Livingston County Historical Society
01
project
overview
The Livingston County Historical Society (LCHS) is a small, non-profit museum in the rural county of Geneseo, New York that is currently looking to expand and after a recent funding cut. The museum was in need of additional funds to continue with their expansion, and through a connection with Miami University, they asked a team of students from Miami’s Emerging Technology in Business and Design major (ETBD) taking IMS 228 – Client Consulting Planning, Organizing, and Executing Projects to build a variety of promotional and fundraising materials for this purpose. ETBD explores the impact of digital media and technology on modern industries. From social media marketing and game development to UI and UX design and digital innovation. Additional focus areas include experience design, app/web development, VR/AR, and media production.
Programs Used:
02
project
beginnings
I was assigned to a smaller sub-group of five people who were responsible for creating a Capital Campaign Brochure that would feature both a physical and digital version, to be used to encourage visitors to donate to LCHS. After reviewing our skillsets, we divided our work into roughly three components – the physical brochure, the digital version, and the pledge form. The physical brochure contained an attached pledge form that would allow viewers to directly start a donation, or use the QR code attached to donate online. I worked with two others to create the physical brochure, while the remaining two members of our group kept in contact with LCHS and built out the web version.
The mission our group faced was to create these three components, using the time between our initial kickoff meeting and first review period to develop prototypes of the physical brochure and pledge form. We knew that the digital brochure would simply copy the information and design style of the physical one onto LCHS’s website so we prioritized the physical.
03
design
process
The brochure was deigned from the start to guide users into eventually making a donation to LCHS. One of the ways we encouraged this was by adopting a 4-fold design rather than a typical tri-fold, allowing the pledge form to be physically attached to the brochure. It is also the first thing that is seen when the brochure is opened. The rest of the brochure lists 3 distinct ways in which an expansion will benefit the museum and reason why more funding is needed.
Designing the brochure was not entirely seamless. Some of our pain points along the way were induced by limitations of the software. (Adobe InDesign) and its lack of live collaborative features. There was also a lack of good images and clear communication on decisions provided to us from LCHS, though these did improve as the project went on.
The first draft of the brochure.
First version with pledge form.
04
my
role
My role in the creation process was that of a bookend, starting off and finishing up. I developed the original template for our brochure, helping two of our other members as they added information from LCHS and did design work on the brochure. When they had added this content, I was responsible for touching it up and ensuring that the brochure looked professional. This cycle was repeated between our 3 client meetings, where I would supervise and make minor changes to the brochure following feedback from LCHS, allow my group mates to add some more extensive edits, then finish up, checking for typos or inconsistencies.
The final design of the brochure complete with QR code on the pledge form and image captions.
05
working
as a team
Teamwork makes the dreamwork!
Although not my first team project in college, I believe that working with this group was the most successful team project I have worked on. That is thanks to the use of agile framework and scrum. Our group had a task website run by one of our members, though we were free to assign ourselves more tasks if we had the free time. This system plus effective communication (through iMessages) allowed us to balance work on the brochure project alongside other schoolwork and social lives.
Having check in times and closer but smaller deadlines helped my motivation in working on the project and minimized procrastination, creating a mostly stress-free environment for working.
Mason Santalucia 