Web design partner selected

The Web Team has been hard at work for many months searching for the right partner to come alongside us for the website redesign project. We began by writing a Request for Information, which we sent to about a dozen design firms, both local and non-local. After reviewing all of the responses, we narrowed our search down to our top two choices who we brought to campus to meet with in person. As a result of that process, one group has stood out as an excellent choice for our needs.

We’re thrilled to introduce you to Mighty. They are a local firm based in Grand Rapids, and although they are smaller (10 staff members) their focus is solely on the web. We were extremely impressed by their thoughtful approach to web content strategy and design, as well as their top notch client list and portfolio.

We’ll soon have the details finalized with our agreement with Mighty and will be kicking off the project with them in the near future!

Follow @hellomighty on Twitter

New athletics website goes live with PrestoSports

A year’s worth of hard work and teamwork has culminated with a new athletics website for those who follow the Flying Dutch and Flying Dutchmen and those who dream of one day becoming a student-athlete at Hope.

Hope College has partnered with PrestoSports in this  redesign of the college’s athletics website. PrestoSports also services the websites for the Michigan Intercollegiate Athletic Association and more than 300 NCAA Division III institutions.

The partnership with PrestoSports will allow opportunities for expanded coverage of Hope Athletics, including visually. Each team’s roster pages now will feature individual pictures of each student-athlete. Results from Hope sporting events will be updated more quickly. The Sports Information Department at Hope College is planning to provide multi-media storytelling, including expanded use of video and social media.

PrestoSports also offers a mobile site for Hope Athletics, making it easier for fans to keep up to date with their smartphones. We hope you enjoy this newest way to keep track of your favorite school and teams.

Interactive Campus Map goes live

We’re excited to announce the launch of our new web-based interactive campus map provided through CampusBird.

Some of the map’s features include:
  • Photos and descriptions for each location on the map
  • Directions and sharing from each pin drop
  • 360° panoramic images for many prominent locations (click the yellow people icons throughout the map)
  • Search function with keywords for each location
We’d appreciate your feedback, take a look and let us know what you think!

Integrated Marketing Project and Process updates

Inspired by past emails from our friends at the Physical Plant, we hope that regular updates from Integrated Marketing will be interesting and helpful to you!  With each update we aim to give you a glimpse of what we’re working on and celebrating, as well as a little more in-depth insight into one featured project.
 
Business Cards, Letterhead and Envelopes!  Oh My!
The day-to-day print collateral for Hope College may not be a topic that keeps you on the edge of your seat.  But there are a few developments that might be of interest to you! 
 
Since the adoption of a new Hope College logo, we have been ordering newly designed business cards, letterhead and envelopes for many individuals and departments.  We are continuing our partnership with The Printery for their production, as we have for a number of years.  Recently, The Printery acquired new digital printing equipment that has reduced the cost of business cards even though we have increased the quality of the business card paper. Additionally, The Printery offers a web-to-print system that allows for easy ordering, consistency of these print items – significantly reducing the amount of staff time necessary for layout and design, and more seamless invoicing back to Hope.
 
Here’s a sample of our new business card design:
Need to order your new business cards, letterhead or envelopes?  Please visit:  http://hope.edu/brand/request-resources .
 
In Progress and Upcoming:
  • Work on a contract with OmniUpdate for the college-wide Content Management System (CMS).  More information on this will be included in  the next update!
  • Responses to our Request for Information (RFI) for design partnership to create the next iteration of the Hope College web site have been received
  • Technical coding with Presto! Sports for the Athletics web site. The site design was created here at Hope and Presto! is managing the site coding and transition of thousands of web pages, statistics and images.  Presto! has served as the content management system for numerous other MIAA schools, as well as the MIAA itself, and provides a number of efficiencies for reporting and statistical tracking.
  • Invitations and other communications are being prepared for Dr. Knapp’s Inauguration and Homecoming.  Recently we created pieces for the Kruizenga Art Museum groundbreaking and Haworth Engineering dedication.  
  • Working on brand implementation with Student Development departments and the HopeFund.
  • Organizing font licenses and installation with our colleagues at CIT.
  • Preparing to transition several campus blogs (Admissions, Study Abroad) to a local installation of WordPress.
  • Coming soon – a new web-based campus map provided through CampusBird and with lots of help with colleagues in Admissions. We will more officially launch the maps in the weeks ahead, but we welcome your feedback now:  http://maps.hope.edu   Also, we’re working on improving the building outlines and labels available through Google Maps.
Recent Celebrations:
  • Signed a contract with WebDAM to provide a Digital Asset Management (DAM) system to store tens of thousands of campus photographs and other resources that are created each year.
  • Have you seen the new banners on the campus lightpoles?  We had a lot of fun designing them and are very thankful to our friends at Physical Plant for their help in getting them installed! We are also working on a number of other campus signs. 
We are grateful for the participation and encouragement of so many around campus.  We truly enjoy working with you and discovering new ways that we can implement the Hope College brand!

Content Management System Selected: OU Campus

We’re pleased to share after significant feedback from the campus community, we will be moving forward with the selection of OmniUpdate’s OU Campus as the new Content Management System (CMS) for the Hope website.

OU Campus is the leading web CMS for higher education, and it is used to manage more than 700 college and university websites.

Some of the features we love:

  • powerful administration
  • streamlined content
  • user friendly editing
  • reusable content
  • quality control
  • convenient publishing
  • extensibility
  • effortless syndication

Although this is a big step, it is only the first of many. We will be turning our attention to selecting a web design and content strategy partner to fulfill the other aspects of the project.

Let the branding begin!

Over the last several months you may recall hearing that Hope College has begun to take steps forward on implementation of new branding for the College. Integrated Marketing (or some may have heard it referred to as the Brand Team) is ready to begin the first phase of this branding process with learning sessions we’re calling “BRAND 101: More Than Just a Logo.”

We are excited to be able to offer you three different times to listen, learn and ask questions in the next couple of weeks. Be assured these will not be the only times if one of these first sessions doesn’t work for you. It is the first step of many that we look forward to being able to walk along side of you as each of you think about marketing in your areas of work. Come learn about how you can start to use the brand for Hope!

We look forward to seeing you at one of these BRAND 101 sessions:

Wednesday, January 23
Granberg Room
9:30 – 11 a.m.
refreshments will be served

Tuesday, January 29
Herrick Room
2 – 3:30 p.m.
refreshments will be served

Wednesday, January 30 
Haworth Inn – Ballroom II
10 – 11:30 a.m.
refreshments will be served

People and a Place

Work continues as we prepare a new resource for the Hope community.  

The Brand Management Team (see earlier post) is in the final stages of interviewing candidates to fill two part-time positions set to join the team in the coming months. Both positions are Communication Specialists, with one focusing on graphic design and one focusing on web development. We have received many great applications and look forward to introducing new team members soon.

We also have received confirmation of a workspace. The Brand Management Team, along with the new positions and a student staff, will be creating a space on the 2nd Floor of the Anderson-Werkman Center on 8th Street, pending a move by the Events and Conferences office.

An opening date, office hours and other details are pending.

Finishing Up Brand Guidelines

Over the past few days and weeks the Brand Management Team has been working with EM2 (our creative firm in Atlanta, GA) and others on campus to finalize a Brand Guidelines document, which will become the centerpiece for future campus resources and training.

The Brand Guidelines document will include information on Brand Foundation (story, promise, attributes, key messaging), Logo Standards, Brand Identity (colors, typography, photography) and Brand Application (examples, resources). 

As mentioned above, the document will be shared and used as we begin to develop a brand education curriculum and supporting resources that will help faculty and staff tell the Hope story. Stay tuned for information about the first Brand Education 101 sessions!