Northwest Arts Center

User informed illustrated map of the downtown Edmonds area

Overview

Northwest Arts Center (NWAC) is a small rental facility tucked away on the border between Clyde Hill and Bellevue. Hosting a variety of children’s events for all sorts of holidays, the facility also rents out its space for classes, meetings, birthdays, dances, and more.

My project was working on marketing material for NWAC and helping with any events or programs on-site. This included designing flyers, editing program documents, and redesigning on-site signage and papers.

Due to non-disclosure agreements I signed with City of Bellevue, much of the inward-facing work I did cannot be shown.

Role
Graphic Design
Marketing, business plan design, event advertising

Project Type
Internship

Duration
Oct 2019- Mar 2020

Problem

How might we design outward and inward facing event marketing material for Bellevue residents?

Rentals Checklist

I started by asking the primary rentals manager Andy for things that were working and not working on the current rentals checklist.

The purpose of this checklist sheet was to have both City of Bellevue staff and the renter of the room/space check for the physical condition of the space and note any problems both before and after the agreed upon rental time. The physical paper copy would also be important for recordkeeping purposes so that any staff could quickly refer back to past rentals/renters.

She described a desire for there to be clearer checklists when renters were checking into the building, so there would be no confusion on any mess that was there before versus after they checked in. She also wished that there were a large, easy to see checkbox for renters to check off confirming that they agreed to the conditions listed.

After spending a few hours of back-and-forth on the format and organization, we arrived on a final product that met her needs which saw much use in the following months pre-COVID.

To address this, I created a two page flyer that clearly displayed the photos of the exterior and interior rental space, described each room, ideas for what people could rent it out for, and most importantly an easily scannable QR code on the first page that would take the viewer right to the rentals website.

Marketing

City sponsored events at Northwest Arts Center were largely only marketed through paper brochures, magazines and flyers. As such, I was first asked to design a few flyers for Northwest Arts Center’s main rental spaces. The previous flyers had outdated photos and a long URL pasted onto the paper that would make it impractical for most people to manually type out.

Business Plan

The program manager Cindy Shelton needed an overarching business plan for day camps at some of City of Bellevue’s rentals, including Northwest Arts Center, Bellevue Boys and Girl’s Club, and Kelsey Creek Farm. I was in charge primarily of preliminary research as well as format of this business plan.

I began with researching other competitors, where those competitors would advertise, how they would structure advertisements, and compared that to NWAC’s present advertisements. While many equivalent competitors had a strong digital presence, City of Bellevue rentals lacked digital advertising. City of Bellevue puts all events into a booklet that can be picked up at many of their facilities, but it would require people to physically pick it up or be in the space first. Much of their digital advertisements came from other sources, including the Bellevue Downtown Association. It should be noted, however, that comparable competitor equivalents were mostly private nonprofit organizations instead of a local city government.

Another issue noted was some discrepancies between information printed on City of Bellevue booklets and the time and date information of events posted to a document available from the website.

Finally, I researched a variety of branding guides and compared more successful to less successful information hierarchy structures in order to inform my design decisions as much as possible.

Using the general structure guidance provided by Cindy Shelton, I designed the rentals business plan in accordance to ADA complicit design regulations as well as City of Bellevue’s style guide.

Due to the NDA I signed, I am not allowed to share visuals of it as it contains sensitive information.

Reflection

Unfortunately, during my internship here and much like the rest of the world we were not anticipating for the COVID-19 pandemic to suddenly shut down all operations at many government facilities, which included City of Bellevue rental spaces and NWAC. My internship was cut short during my senior year of high school, and I was not able to return before I graduated.

Despite the surprising end to my internship due to COVID, the projects I was able to work on were largely a success.

Andy expressed that, “the one-time rentals checklist looks so much better” after I was able to implement the things she needed into the checklist redesign. And although much of the events I advertised on digital platforms were called off (Including the St. Patrick’s Day event and the Easter Egg Hunt event), as for the Great Pumpkin Hunt event…

…It was a success! Tickets sold out and I personally attended this event to help direct other volunteers, create last minute prize signage, and hand out prizes to children. I was also able to help communicate using Mandarin with a few Chinese immigrant families who struggled to skim through all the prizes listed.

While I was unable to see through with the Business Plans due to COVID, I had finished the main template design and I assume Cindy Shelton as well as the other staff involved was able to utilize my design and fill out the template as needed. After all, I received a very kind email from Cindy Shelton around my graduation, stating:

“You were exceptional, very mature and skilled. Your Day Camp Manual, Business Plan, and other designs and work are being put into operations.”