Dining Services

The best part about this job? The free chocolate milk, hands down!

Back in 2014, I was entering my senior year of undergrad at Northern Michigan University, and ended up getting my first design job as a student graphic designer for NMU Dining Services. The department is responsible for all the marketing needs of the on-campus dining facilities, which requires an enormous amount of planning and attention to detail. This was my first time getting industry experience and it was definitely an eye opener into the fast paced world of graphic design. I learned a lot of important lessons from this job, such as “server first saving” and how much actual organization goes into each project you design.

The Work

The design department consisted of a marketing manager and six student graphic designers. Each of the student designers were responsible for the development and creation of marketing materials for selected brands that were assigned to us. For large dining events, non-design tasks, or projects that fell specifically under the NMU Dining brand, the six of us would collaborate with each other or switch off based on which one of us had an available slot.

One aspect that I really enjoyed about this job was the opportunity to work with multiple brands. It gave me a chance to really exercise my creativity and forced me to adapt for each different challenge. This job allowed me the opportunity to work on everything from posters and flyers to digital and social media assets.

A large majority of my work consisted of designing creative marketing materials for our one of a kind events, like National Ice Cream Cone Day and Bizarre Food Day. However, one brand in particular that I was able to contribute to weekly was CATTRAX.

Cattrax

A specials of the week poster displayed directly outside of Cattrax. A lot of work went into these posters, including regular collaboration with Cattrax pricing department and original photography once a week for each item on sale. I always joke this is where I got my first true experience of finishing a photoshoot, a poster, and supply run in less than 5 hours. Welcome to the world of fast paced design!

Located in between what was Payne - Halverson Hall and Spalding - Gant Hall was a little convenience store called Cattrax. As someone who lived in Halverson Hall when he was in the dorms, I made MANY late night visits to Cattrax over the years. The store itself had everything a convenience store has, but the best thing by far you could get at Cattrax was those delicious F'real milkshakes.

The semester before I was hired, Dining Services had started to develop Cattrax's brand more, which included a new logo and color scheme. It was exciting getting to work with a newly developed brand and getting to be involved with projects that helped define the brand. The main focus of Cattrax's marketing campaigns was to increase the number of student visits by the amount of specials the store offered and by regularly changing the weekly featured items. In order to achieve this, I had to make sure Cattrax had the correct, up to date materials every week.

A series of flyers and posters I created promoting Cattrax's 2 for $1 20 oz Mountain Dew Special. Cattrax regularly had lots of name brand products on sale, and it was a lot of fun getting to work with recognizable brands.

A flyer promoting a specialty ramen cooker for a discounted price.

A series of stickers I created to help promote new brand awareness with Cattrax.

Cattrax price tags created to highlight items on sale. I printed out multiple tags every week, cut them, and laminated them myself.

A promotional poster offering a deal on Lemon Drop F'reals. The F'reals were by far the best thing Cattrax served. I probably spent well over $200 total on these when I lived in the dorms.

A Halloween-themed Specials of the Week Poster. Whenever we had any seasonal changes or big holidays coming up, I got to experiment with the Poster a little bit, which was always a good time.

Poster promoting the chance to win a free speaker with the purchase of a case of Aquafina.

My marketing manager and I decided that the best way to promote these specials would be to create a poster template where we could conduct a photoshoot every week and change out the items that were on sale. It could become a staple for the store and it was something the students would notice changing every week. Once we came up with how the poster was going to look, we created a variety of other branded items to go with it, such as price tags and stickers to really help promote the Cattrax brand.

I remember once I started working here, I would always tell any of the underclassmen still in the dorms that any cool marketing you saw at Cattrax was mine, and they would send me photos of my stuff whenever they were there saying what a good job I did. Definitely gave me a little bit of an ego boost.

Dining Events

Personally, my favorite part of the job was when I got to create the marketing for all of our special dining events that took place throughout the semester. The dining events varied depending on the theme and each event had it's own unique menu and specials and therefore needed its very own unique brand. This was the part of the job where I got to exercise my creativity the most, and my boss was very supportive about letting me explore my ideas and develop them the way I envisioned, while also providing valuable feedback. Not only were these events a lot of fun to design, but many of them included some form of decorating the dining halls in order to get the students excited as well. My personal favorite events were Bizarre Foods Day, the Holiday Meal, Dia De Los Muertos, Heikki Lunta Winter Festival, and National Ice Cream Cone Day.

Bizarre Foods Day

Eat Something Bold Day

Bi Bim Bap Dinner

Holiday Meal

Cheese Fondue Day

National Ice Cream Cone Day

National Cookie Day

Late Night Superbowl Munchies

Other Projects

Flyer reminding students to ask the staff if they have any questions.

A Prize wheel I created for Pigstock. Students could spin the wheel and win a variety of prizes, including free swag and / or giftcards to on campus restaurants. This was one of the more unusual projects I had the opportunity to work on, but it was a fun project.

A survey I created that was located at every dining hall and restaurant on campus. I would literally see hundreds of these all over campus.

An informational tri-fold table tent ad I collaborated on for the Heikki Lunta dinner. Heikki Lunta is (technically the name of the Finnish God of snow,) but more importantly it is a celebration of Finnish heritage. The ad shows where many of Northern's Finnish exchange students come from. (original art direction by Abigail Dugour and Claire Moore.)

A sign I designed to be displayed when dining rooms were closed.

A calendar for listing all dining events coming up for the 2015 semester. These posters were displayed at all dining halls and available as a handout.

I always love going back to these projects and seeing where I first got my start as a graphic designer. To look back on these projects and see how far I've come as a designer is ultimately very encouraging. No matter where my career takes me, I owe a lot to this job. I am so thankful I got my start here, becuase I honestly don't know where I'd be without it.

ryansartori.us

[email protected] | (734) 780 - 4795 | Kalamazoo, MI