The Colorado Department of Higher Education (CDHE) is the principal department of the Colorado state government responsible for implementing the policies of the Colorado Commission on Higher Education.
Problem
With the redesign of the Colorado state identity system, the CDHE was provided a set of standard templates for presentations and reports. The organization's Digital Media Manager, Joe Portnoy, contacted me to help create a presentation that was "less mountainous and outdoorsy and more student focused." He also needed help creating an MS Word template for CDHE reports that would allow members of his media team to easily add text and imagery when needed.
Thinking
Create an easy-to-use presentation that would allow the CDHE staff members to effectively communicate insights and ideas to department leadership. The template's design should honor the newly minted Colorado State visual identity system and photographic style while expressing the spirit of the Colorado higher education experience.
Old Presentation Deck
Functional, but lacking and a deeper sense of identity, the standard issue presentation deck wasn't sufficient for the CDHE digital media team or department staff. Its page layouts also lacked the flexibility of options and didn't take into account the 16:9 screen format used by most staff members and in most conference rooms.
OLD CDHE PRESENTATION SLIDES
New Presentation Template
The new slide deck set the tone and provided the flexibility Joe and his team were looking for. Created in MS Powerpoint, it's accessible to the entire CDHE staff, as opposed to just the Digital Media team, and is easily extended with simple design patterns to inspire new layouts.
Placeholders Should be Exciting
Spirit and emotion were as much a part of this project’s brief as function and flexibility. So I added positive placeholder copy in a few areas to help set the tone for the deck. The two alternate covers above are a couple of examples.
Facts Were Useful
Alongside positive messages, and to help ease adoption of the template design as it was ushered through rounds of internal reviews, I cited facts about the higher education system in Colorado. It allowed stakeholders to visualize how the communication tool would be used better than only using the standard Lorem Ipsum text.
Result
A flexible, easy-to-modify presentation that extends the visual identity of the state of Colorado while capturing the spirit of the Colorado education experience. The presentation exceeded the expectations of the client and was quickly put to good use.
Project Stats
Length of project:
About 4 weeks
About 4 weeks
Skills used:
Research, Photo editing, Graphic design
Research, Photo editing, Graphic design
Tools used:
Photoshop, Powerpoint, Typekit, Unsplash
Photoshop, Powerpoint, Typekit, Unsplash
