Design Documentation
GTS News
Client
Grange Technology Services
Team Role
Project Lead
Problem Statement
The Grange Technology Services department needed a more professional format for their weekly email newsletter. The new design had to incorporate all existing sections of the periodical as well as follow the company branding style guidelines, while also being easily adjustable for non-designers.
Background
Grange Technology Services (GTS) uses a weekly newsletter to keep associates informed of departmental initiatives and events.
I served as liaison between my GTS Project Manager and the Grange Head of Branding departmental representatives. I worked directly with the head of branding to conceive production strategies, tested their implementation in my own work time, checked in regularly with the GTS project manager to report progress and receive adjustment notes, and documented the process for future use and/or replication.
My Role
Issues
The original design was non-uniform and didn't fall in line with company branding guidelines.
Additionally, improper practices over time had damaged the newsletter template, making it difficult to understand and complicated to manipulate.
Solution
Representatives from GTS and the department of marketing & branding met to develop and produce a new, more user friendly official format.
Research
All parties were present at the initial project definition meeting. In this meeting GTS departmental needs as well as creative constraints were laid out and preliminary design options were brainstormed.
GTS Needs
The newsletter needed to include multiple spaces for relevant company messages and be quickly and easily adjustable by a non-designers. There also needed to be some form of differentiation between GTS specific messages and overarching Operations messages.
Unbranded, poor formatting
No consistency, too many different colors and font weights
Original Newsletter Structure
Approach
We decided not to change the existing format of the newsletter, electing instead to refine the graphic elements to more closely match the company and establish explicit construction and style guides.
All permanent elements (including backgrounds, image frames, and filters) were individually designed and produced using Adobe Creative Suite products.
These pieces would be used as the building blocks for the graphic section headers, however the future template user base would have neither guaranteed experience with nor access to Adobe Creative Services so element assembly was completed and documented using the universally accessible, and far more ubiquitously understood, snipping tool.
Design Decision
GTS messages would be themed in Grange light green while less frequent Operations messages would be themed in Grange light grey.
Documentation
I recorded detailed documentation for the formatting and construction of every section within the email client (Outlook) as well as for the process by which any element could be altered for any future, structural updates to the newsletter
Newsletter construction Documentation
Element Alteration Instruction Excerpts
