Sometimes ideas come to fruition overnight. Sometimes they’re a few years in the making.
Once upon a time, a friend and colleague said to me (something along the lines of), “Wouldn’t national park-style posters of Hope College be so great?”
The idea rolled around in my head for more years than I care to admit. Until September 2021 when I thought there might be a way to move the concept forward without adding too many extra hours to a very busy in-house Creative Services team.
With a little research, I discovered a well-rated freelance graphic designer on Fiverr who specialized in this type of vintage poster design. Within just a few emails and several photos shared with the designer, I felt confident enough to give them a try for a few poster concepts. Together we worked our way through a few barriers in terms of time zones and language (Graves Hall became translated into “Graveyard Room” and Pine Grove became “Pine Land” somewhere along the way.). But in just a few weeks, I had beautiful, editable vector files that I felt were good to move to another stage here on Hope’s campus.
The next stage was letting our student graphic designers (Katie Shantz ’22, Parker Johnson ’22, Kaylee Siebert ’22) put their own spin on the vintage national park concepts! Our team of student designers is essential to the function of the Creative Services group for hundreds of projects every year. Sometimes their projects are more fun, but they are often tasked with simple event posters and mundane edits. This project allowed them to flex their creative muscles over several months. There were no barriers other than their own inspired minds!
And we couldn’t be more pleased with the results! After printing a few samples of the student designers’ finished designs here on Hope’s campus and hanging them up in the office, the feedback was overwhelmingly positive. “These are so cool!”
So we had them professionally printed and asked our friends in the Bookstore if they would be interested in selling them. Again, a resounding, “Yes!” A fun project with invaluable student employee involvement has gone to market!
Check out bookstore.hope.edu and tell us your favorite poster. For only $10 one can be yours!
(Stay tuned – we think there will be more limited edition vintage-style Hope College posters in the future!)