I am by no means a graphic designer, but thankfully in my job I do get the opportunity to exercise my creative/artistic juices from time to time. Recently I’ve been working on updates to materials for our “East Coast Plane Trip“, a fall visitation program for students from (you guessed it) the East Coast. Our logo was in need of a major overhaul, and here’s what I came up with: I’m pretty pleased with how it turned out, but none of it would have been possible without kuler, one of my newest sources for design inspiration. With no color theory background to my credit, this...

When Facebook announced the ability for companies and organizations to create their own “pages” on the network, it was something that we quickly decided was worth pursuing.  Thus was born the Hope College Admissions page on Facebook.  I knew this would be a great avenue for facilitating conversation among graduates of Hope and for providing unique content to prospective students. When I stumbled across a $100 credit available for Facebook Ads, I knew there was some real potential there for driving traffic to our Page on Facebook.  Here’s what we came up with: I have to admit that...

One of the great things about my job is that I am able to spend a lot of time reading about and researching new tech opportunities for our office.  The only downside to this is that there is a ton of noise out there — from fledgling startups to seemingly important blog posts to Twitter action that’s interesting, but not necessarily relevant to my work. It’s gotten to be so much that I’ve been keeping NetNewsWire closed during the day so that I’m not continually distracted by new items from my feeds.  I have become more reliant on to-do lists to get things done, something...

My wife and I have recently been trying to rid our home of anything we don’t use on a day-to-day basis.  Along the way we’ve come across old cell phones, an old PDA, and even an ancient digital camera (it’s like, three years old).  These gadgets are usually great eBay fodder, but I have to be honest: I don’t often have the time and energy to list the item, figure out packaging, and head out to the post office to ship it.  Enter Gazelle. Gazelle is trying to keep old electronics out of the landfill (a noble effort), and they are offering cash for your old stuff.  We had a...

It happens every year.  August hits, and I start thinking about the next recruitment cycle and the changes that I will make.  First on my list is preparing for the fall travel season, but I’m also considering how I’ll make sure of different means of communication when working with my prospects: Print. This is obviously a given for most offices, and most of what we do is automated.  I’ve begun to really question this way of delivering content.  It’s so expensive, and we have no way of evaluating its effectiveness. Phone. There’s no doubt that this has been the status...