NIU Athletics/Recreation
Project type
Date
Marketing/Design
August 2023-Current
For more than two years I have worked for NIU Athletics as a graphic designer. My job is to work with the recreation center's marketing department to create designs that fit brand standards. I have created advertisements, social media posts, signage, fliers, videos, apparel, as well as complete redesigns of two of NIU Recreations sub-brand logos
Adventures and Nutrition Logos
The original logos designed for these sub-brands did not match the design of much else at NIU Recreation and I was tasked with creating new versions that better followed the brand standards. Adventures was designed to give the idea of a patch that gave the feeling of camping, being in nature, and being near water as those are some of the many trips that department takes students on. NIU Nutrition was designed to be reminiscent of a plate with a fork and knife as they focus on dietary health.
Social Media
Posting on social media is one of the biggest aspects of marketing I was tasked with at NIU Recreation. Social media posts were important for spreading awareness of the Recreation Centers existence on campus and to spread the word of upcoming events being hosted by the Recreation Center or for projects each department was working on from fitness classes, schedules, nutrition coaching prices, or general information about upcoming news.
Marketing Graphics
Every project requires graphics of different sizes. The graphics always have standard sizes for TV advertisements around the campus as well as social media posts on Instagram, Facebook, and Twitter. Fliers are also a standard for every graphic produced. These three are a staple in graphic sizes. Some other projects have required designs to be sized for digital marketing across campus and occasionally designs sized for the jumbotron in the Huskie Stadium.
T-Shirt Designs
Multiple departments required frequent T-shirt designs. The most frequent was for the Intramural Sports department as they gave new shirt designs to the champions of each sport every semester. I was also tasked with designing the general NIU Recreation Center T-shirts that were given away at different events throughout the years I worked at the Recreation Center.
Apparel Design Process
The shirts were designed based on a theme picked at the beginning of each school year. For example, the 2025 to 2026 school year's designated theme was "Survival Mode: On". After being given the theme I was then tasked with building a design using the brand guidelines put in place by NIU Recreation. For the "Survival Mode: On" shirt design I originally designed three shirts and let the team choose which design best suited the theme and brand.
Final Design Choice
With the final design that was chosen I was tasked with finding a way to incorporate a slight gradient of red to black to tie the shirt in with some other designs from NIU Recreation as well as the slogan "Have fun, Live well, Feel your best." I placed the slogan across the back of the shirt and knowing gradients are tricky when screen printing I went with a black halftone gradient for the light from the flashlight on the front of the shirt.
Other Apparel
Aside from shirts I was also tasked with being given ideas from the different Sport Clubs for jerseys, hats, and other apparel for their clubs, and working with them to redesign their ideas into working with the brand guidelines, allowed typefaces, and color themes.
Vinyl Trailer Wraps
One of the bigger projects I was given was designing a vinyl wrap to cover a trailer used by the Adventures sub brand to carry supplies across campus for events and lagoon kayaking. It was important to keep the design on brand while also using the trailer to market the NIU Recreation Center and the Adventures department. The design was kept simple with the gradient used around the Recreation Center, white versions of the NIU Recreation Wordmark logo and the Adventures logo I redesigned. The design also incorporated the website link where schedules and event details can be found. Knowing the trailer would be displayed in different spots around campus was important to keep in consideration as the logos and website needed to be visible from all potential angles that it would be displayed.
The main signage for the Women’s Workout Center was designed to match the branding of other areas and facilities that were available to the community around the NIU Recreation Center. The brand colors, typography layout, and logo placement were all designed to be reminiscent of other facility signage while being formatted to fit above the door of the area. It was also slightly altered to give it a new and
somewhat unique feeling to members to get them interested in seeing the new area, it’s equipment and the value it has to offer the community. The branding for the new area also changed to have women as the leading faces of the new section of the building that opened to it’s female demographic.
Have Fun. Live Well. Feel Your Best.
The three primary posters for the Women’s Workout Center aimed to portray the overall message that the Northern Illinois University Recreation Center gives to it’s students and community. The phrase “Have Fun. Live Well. Feel Your Best.” is put around the Recreation Center's branding to give the patrons an idea of what they should strive to achieve while spending their time in the facilities. The poster project for this part of the facility had three main posters with this branding and two filler posters showing the community aspect of the NIU Recreation Center.
Women's Workout Center
During my time at the Northern Illinois Recreation Center there was a section of the facility that was renovated to be exclusively for women to be able to work out away from the rest of the patrons if they so pleased. This new area was introduced to give women a safe space to exercise if they felt uncomfortable doing so in other sections of the facility. I was tasked with designing the areas signage as well as posters that were to be printed on large format canvas to ensure longevity rather than the normal printing that was done around the Recreation Center.
