Professional Writing

This assignment called for a brochure that showcased students’ progress with Photoshop, Illustrator, and InDesign. Students created an 8 ½ x 11-inch tri-fold brochure in InDesign. Students could choose any company or organization; I chose Cat Adoption Team, a Cincinnati/Northern Kentucky nonprofit cat rescue that generally goes by CAT. The rescue focused on pulling cats from local animal shelters and putting those cats up for adoption.

The brochure’s audience was potential adopters from CAT. The brochure could be made available at CAT events, or volunteers could hand it out as needed. Its purpose was to give potential adopters a brief explanation of the organization and its adoption process.

I chose colors from CAT’s website so that branding was consistent. I chose photos from CAT’s Facebook page because I wanted photos of cats the organization helped. The content organization allowed readers to learn about the organization and its cats first, then CAT’s adoption steps. I included a brief explanation on what to expect when a new cat enters a home as well as a thank-you from CAT. I put CAT’s contact and donation information on the back panel so that potential adopters could easily flip the brochure to find the various ways to contact CAT.

CAT used an updated version of this brochure.

The jacket copy was for the inside jacket flap of Across the Color Line: Reporting 25 Years in Black Cincinnati by journalist Mark Curnutte, which was published by UC Press. I helped write the copy during my Summer 2019 internship with UC Press. I researched the author and his work, read the book, and wrote the first draft of the jacket copy. The final version contains copy from me, the press director, and Curnutte.

The purpose of this project in the Professional Writing Capstone was to work as a team to produce deliverables for a client. The professors chose teams and assigned clients based on each student’s top two choices. I had two team members. We worked with Caracole, a Cincinnati-based nonprofit organization that offers AIDS services.

The client wanted a recommendation for updating the structure of and content on the organization’s website. My team developed a website recommendation report that included a proposed site structure with rationale for our decisions as well as revisions for the Home and About Us pages. Our decisions were informed by an audit of Caracole’s site, analysis of the site’s audience, personas we created, and research on the websites of other AIDS services organizations. The final report contained the proposed site structure and discussion, Home and About Us page revisions, a content audit, and four personas.

My team collaborated on the proposed site structure. I then developed the original and final website structure graphics in InDesign, and I wrote the proposed structure discussion. I also created the cover page of the report using Illustrator, Photoshop, and InDesign. Finally, I incorporated the team’s copy into the report with copy editing help from team members. I composed the report in Word and then exported it to a PDF.

When compiling the report in Word, I used section breaks where necessary to allow for both landscape- and portrait-oriented pages and to keep page numbering consistent. I also used headings so that when I created the table of contents, each item would be clickable in Word or in a PDF. Additionally, I rearranged images and text and formatted images where necessary to make sure that there was enough space around wrapped images. Finally, I made sure spacing and colors were consistent throughout the report.

I developed the WordPress Guide for the University of Cincinnati Press during my Summer 2019 internship. The press director requested a guide detailing how to update the press website once my internship was over. The guide contains instructions for and information on editing all website content. I created the guide in Word.

This assignment evaluated students’ ability to write a persuasive message. Students wrote a one-page direct mail marketing letter that persuaded recipients to buy a membership or subscription from a business or organization of their choosing. Students needed to narrow down their intended audience and analyze its needs. The letter also had to incorporate appealing visual elements.

For the assignment, I chose Love With Food by SnackNation, a subscription snack service that sent monthly boxes of organic or all-natural snacks to subscribers’ homes. My intended audience was young, health-conscious business professionals with gym memberships. I utilized the branding of the subscription service and included a photo from their website. I created the letter in Word.

September 2023 update:
The Love With Food subscription service no longer exists, but the branding still exists in search engines.

The purpose of this project was to evaluate Information Design students’ ability to research and then compare sets of like information. Students were tasked with incorporating the comparison into an infographic that was visually appealing and informative. The infographic had to be created in Canva without the use of a template. Graphical elements could not be created in external software, but students could use fair-use elements found in a Google search.

This assignment was due the day after the 238th anniversary of Uranus’ discovery, so I decided to compare Uranus and Neptune because both are ice giants. My intended audience was children ages 5 – 9 who are interested in astronomy. The infographic could hang on the wall at an astronomy club that has programs for children or could be made available at a relevant program. The purpose of the infographic is to provide basic facts about the ice giants in our solar system.

I compared sets of like information that didn’t require further explanation for my target age range. I chose colors that suggested ice and cold. However, I knew I wanted to include NASA photos of the planets. That could not be done without using black because I was not allowed to edit photos with other software, and all fair-use photos from NASA included space around the planets. I chose font colors that would stand out from the background. I chose a heading font that was fun and childish but easy to read. I kept the rest of the text in an easy-to-read sans serif.