As part of a 3-year project, I joined NYU Athletics in 2017 to help reestablish their presence within the NYU community and elevate their standing in Division 3 sports.
time: 2017 - 2019
my role: lead marketing strategist + graphic designer team: I led a team of 6 interns (3 focused on marketing strategy and 3 focused on content creation) and collaborated with the Senior Student Experience Designer and Assistant Dean for Student Affairs, to whom I also reported.
Visual Identity Guide
A considerable part of my time at NYU involved developing a Visual Identity Guide for NYU Athletics. With several competing identities existing at the time, it was essential to establish a foundation of visual consistency throughout the department. I led a team and collaborated with strategic creative strategists to develop a comprehensive guide for the department, and spearheaded the implementation of the visual identity guide across all areas.
Sport Calendars
There was an intention to create a physical presence throughout the university, demonstrating that NYU Athletics is an integral part of the broader NYU community. To raise awareness and visibility for NYU Athletics, I led various print and social campaigns featuring NYU athletes and promoting their upcoming games.
Game Day Graphics
NYU Athletics comprises 23 individual teams, and traditionally, each team was responsible for creating and managing their own content on their respective accounts. Over a 3-month period, I developed a series of templates to help standardize and establish a visual identity for each team. Once the interns were hired, the responsibility shifted to the Marketing Strategist Intern, while the Digital Strategists collaborated to utilize the templates I developed and create additional content based on the strategy.
Media Day
As part of the rebranding efforts, NYU Athletics initially had no media strategy in place for capturing photos of participants across various sports. This lack of assets led to a strong push to establish a plan for Media Days and create content. I collaborated with various stakeholders to develop a Media Day Strategy for each team and oversaw the execution of Media Day. Additionally, I took on the role of Creative Director, leading the photography and videography processes as well as designing the set.
Student Spotlights
One of my most notable achievements during my time at NYU Athletics revolved around spotlighting students. I firmly believed that to engage the student body in NYU Athletics, we needed to emphasize the students participating in sports and showcase them around campus, digitally, and in any other accessible channels. We launched several campaigns focused on highlighting these students, which proved to be a highly effective strategy, resulting in increased attendance and awareness of NYU Athletics' presence on campus.
Social Media & Management
In my role, I led a team of 6 interns, with 3 focusing on content creation and the others managing the 23 social accounts. I developed the marketing strategy, created an intern guide for onboarding, supervised their efforts, and measured our success using analytics. I also established multiple workflows to streamline the onboarding of new interns and ensure we provided our subscribers with exceptional experiences.
draft of job postings
I led to interviewing and recruiting cycle for the internship and developed the job posting descriptions below to help attract new interns for NYU Athletics.
Looking for a highly creative, motivated and driven individual who can conceptualize and produce creative campaigns and a wide variety of graphic materials. The ability to create compelling designs for both print and digital platforms is essential. Qualified candidates must exhibit knowledge in creative marketing, advertising, and technology trends. This is an excellent opportunity to gain experience working with professional staff in an enthusiastic organization.
QUALIFICATIONS:
Strong visual communication and design skills
Ability and strong desire to think outside of the box
Must be proficient in Adobe InDesign, Illustrator, & Photoshop and/or other common design and layout Applications
Proficiency in After Effects, Final Cut Pro and Motion software is a plus
Must be able to take initiative, show good judgment, and manage projects from beginning to end.
Must attach a link, PDF, or website that shows a variety of work within the portfolio.
RESPONSIBILITIES:
Create multimedia content and posts for social media platforms
Correspond with coaches and account strategies to execute social media strategy
Keep abreast of day-to-day activities and accomplishments of varsity team
Participate in weekly team meetings
Participate in an on-call rotational coverage for graphic content creations during scheduled days, weekends and holidays.
Digital media interns curate, create, and publish our online content — anything from crafting a tweet to snapping photos, shooting and editing gifs, and capturing the story of our teams and athletes.
RESPONSIBILITIES
Create multimedia content and posts for social media platforms
Engage and interact with our audience (e.g., reply to tweets, like posts, comment on photos)
Monitor and track conversations on social platforms
Compile analytics based on content and engagement data
Keep abreast of day-to-day activities and accomplishments of varsity teams
Correspond with coaches and team members to execute social media strategy
Complete additional digital media projects as assigned
OUR IDEAL INTERN
Reflects an outgoing personality with a great sense of humor and positive attitude
Eagerly shares the NYU story and is proud to be an NYU Violet
Lives and breathes social media (and can introduce us to cute animal videos)
Keeps up with news and trends in the digital media world
Eagerly and quickly learns and executes strategies (including learning and using Adobe suite)
Rapidly adopts new technologies, processes, and tools
Embraces feedback and iterative processes
Actively takes initiative on independent and team projects
Effectively articulates ideas and communicates needs
Works productively both remotely and in an office environment
Thinks boldly and creatively and is unafraid to challenge everything
Thrives in an ultra-collaborative environment with a willingness to lead, and be led by, peers
Can teach us something new and awesome (anything, really!)
