I am not a graphic designer.

It's true. I am not a graphic designer. Not at all. Spatial stuff makes no sense to me, I even have trouble replicating a Thanksgiving place setting involving plates, silverware, napkins, and multiple wine glasses. But what I do have are ideas. Not specifically mapped out with, you know, colors layout and stuff. But when it comes to planning solicitations and mail pieces, ideas are what I do best. Concepts and themes, based on samples or a webpage or even an ad I saw somewhere. I know what I want it to say, and how I want the recipient to feel. I can take it as far as general look and loose layout, but after that, I leave it to the pros.

For the first mail piece at YSN completely conceptualized and planned by me (a simple thank you postcard), I had no ideas, and then I had eight ideas, and from those, I finally focused on one. I desperately wanted to move away (far, far away) from the traditional Yale idea of showing action pictures in a Yalie setting. Nursing students, working on a dummy. Nursing students, sitting together in the lounge. Nursing students, in class. All framed by a classic Yale blue border and background, the YSN sheild, and Yale School of Nursing in a very classical font. Zzzzzzzzzzzz...I mean, it's really classic, and Yalie, and it's verzzzzzzzzzzzzz. Seriously, so boring I might die. That's the theme for a large percentage of pieces here at Yale and YSN. A theme of zzzzzz. I had to have something modern, bright, and eyecatching. It had to convey the message in very few words (less than 10), and be supported/explained by the graphic, which is what they'd see first. The graphic pretty much had to almost completely explain the concept and inspire the feeling. The words would support it and fully explain. I wanted a focus on students, just their faces. I wanted bright colors and a very clean look.

After "doodling" for awhile (I don't even call what I did doodling, because it just sucks so much), I had an idea. I explained it as best as I could to our outside graphic designer, and he took a stab. And I didn't like it. So I tried explaining it to him again, and on his second try, he got it right. I had about 14 versions to choose from, all with the same general look and text, but each slightly different. This is the one I chose, the one that was what I had pictured in my mind (only better, because like I said, I'm not a graphic designer, not even in my mind):


I honestly could not be more in love with it. Our nursing students and their bright, smiling, happy, competent faces. As soon as I saw it, I decided that this would be the general theme of all the solicitations and mail pieces that come out of our office, and from central dev. I've heard great things about it thus far, from the people I've shown it to. But in the same breath, they would also point out how different it is from anything that YSN has done. To those who are afraid of change, I have put this giant lithograph on my office wall:


And this one:


Welcome to how I see the world, courtesy of Despair, Inc.