NIRSA Creative Excellence Award Submissions

Please accept the following entries for the NIRSA Creative Excellence Awards. If you have any issues, questions, or concerns, please email mfadler@shsu.edu.

• Comprehensive Brochure & Facility Publication

  Spring 2019 SHSU Recreational Sports Program Guide

  Our goal for this project is to bring to life the different programs offered at SHSU Recreational Sports in an interactive way by using fun facts, statistics, student testimonials and relevant articles to engage our student community. The objective is to engage our student population to build morale and community while laying out all of the programs and events we have during the Spring 2019 school semester. The program guide had to be created under University Branding standards with appropriate University fonts, colors, and correct University logo use. The process looked like brainstorming and researching different successful brochure designs, creating a base look and design, gathering information for the guide, compiling and sorting information, reframing the design to fit the necessary material, condensing the design into 36 pages, and fine tuning details. Once created, the guide went through a 3-step, 12 people proofing process. The program guide was created for both print and web use. The goal of this creative process is to bring student engagement in a fun, interesting, and interactive way.

  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
• Programming Publication

  Get Outdoors Adventure Trips

  The Outdoor series is a series focused on promoting the Outdoor Program at SHSU Recreational Sports. This program highlights the Climbing Center and Outdoor Adventure Trips. The primary goal of this program is to increase student engagement and build a solid, tight-knit community that enjoys character growth and getting active outdoors. One of the major goals of this project was to use images from our own adventure trips and climbing center to promote authenticity. Every year, each pass holder gets a special Outdoor-inspired T-shirt as part of their climbing center semester pass, who in turn promotes a love for our program by sporting our apparel. The creative process consists mainly of brainstorming and creating a cohesive look and design all while adhering to University branding standards. Our posters utilize our own photographs that capture our unique adventure trips. Our designs were created around that inspiration with a focus on framing the authentic photographs well. Our T-shirt is inspired by character growth and attempts to encourage that growth and help students step outside of their comfort zone by playing with meaningful words and fun illustration. The Dino video utilizes the same design and typography elements and was a promotion to encourage student engagement at the Climbing Center.

  
  
  
  
  
  
  

  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  

  
  
• Student Publication

  Polar bearkat Plunge

  The goal of this project was to encourage students to get out, get active, and step outside of their comfort zones at the start of a new school semester. The Polar Bearkat Plunge is a program where students are asked to plunge into a cold, unheated pool in January. This program brings together students and builds communities. What better ice-breaker than breaking the ice and jumping into cold water? Free Hot Chocolate, snacks and T-shirts are provided.

  The creative process behind this project is centered around making Sammy the Bearkat look "Polar" to play off of traditional Polar Plunges. We call the program the Polar Bearkat Plunge and play off of our official University Mascot, Sammy the Bearkat. Our students worked together to create the design and animate it to draw in viewers and boost social media engagement.

  
  
  
• Student Digital Presentation

  Get Outdoors: Mizar Pasantes

  Set Your Summits is a climbing challenge where student Climbing Center pass holders are able to participate by climbing the climbing wall and reaching different distance brackets throughout the 2018-2019 school year. The goal of the project was to highlight Mizar Pasantes, a student who is passionate about climbing and whose life was changed by our outdoor program at SHSU Recreational Sports.

  SHSU Student Mizar Pasantes completed the Ultimate Challenge this semester. In just under 6 months, he managed to climb a total of 8,848 meters on our rock wall. That is the equivalent of climbing Mount Everest. After some convincing from a friend, he fell in love with climbing and made it to the rock wall nearly every day. We love to see students forever changed by our program and are grateful to be an important factor in his growth and happiness as a student at SHSU. Our goal was to not only promote the achievements of Mizar, a beloved patron, but to also tug on the heart-strings of our students and encourage them to get out, get active, and step outside of their comfort zones. We are capable of achieving so much when we set our mind to it. Our biggest challenges in creating this project was managing sound. The students in our marketing department worked tirelessly to create a video that would make Mizar feel proud for all that he has accomplished. At SHSU, we delight in our students success, and our focus in the creative process was to make this known to our student population and boost morale.

  
  
  

  
  
• Integrated Marketing Campaign

  Earth Day at Sam Houston State University

  Our goal for this project was to create a fun, interesting and Earthy looking design to encourage students to think and learn about Earth Day and consider going green and taking care of the earth. The event consisted of several departments on the SHSU campus coming together and supporting Earth Day through a Fair held on our beautiful Bearkat Plaza, where the students are encouraged to learn about energy efficiency, conservation, pollution prevention, gardening and more.

  The process looked a lot like researching and brainstorming earthy designs and pulling together SHSU symbolic icons like the Raven and Huntsville Ponderosa Pine tree to show how the University encourages and relates to Earth Day. In order to stay within University branding we had to incorporate SHSU orange, which encourages school spirit, pride and tradition.

  The video was created by our student animator Xavier Dillards and is a shining example of student growth.

  
  
  
  

  
  

Thank you for browsing our entries into this year's competition. We hope you had as much fun browsing as we did putting them together!

The Rec Sports Marketing Team