The city of DeKalb, Illinois, contacted the NIU Visual Communications program to design branding for their soon-to-be revitalized downtown. The goals of this project were to attract both residents, tourists, and business owners to the downtown area. After several weeks of collaborative research, our branding class determined that the downtown needed to also be marketed to students of Northern Illinois University because, although campus was nearby, most students didn’t frequent downtown businesses.
For my project, I created a way-finding system that helped both residents, students, and tourists find parking and various businesses. A railroad cuts the downtown area in half, making it difficult for visitors to realize there is more to see on the other side of the tracks. I created a design to be placed on the sidewalk to encourage visitors to cross. I also created signs to be placed on street lights and parking lot kiosks that include a map and a community bulletin board. I also created a map brochure that visitors can take with them.
To appeal to business owners, I created full page and half page ads to be placed in local magazines. The ads point out the positive aspects of moving a business to downtown DeKalb. I also created a community profile booklet that includes relevant DeKalb statistics and facts for city hall to give to interested business owners.
Finally, I created a bar crawl event to appeal to NIU students. Although there are several unique bars in DeKalb, students tend to only frequent 2 of them, neither of which are in the downtown area. For this event, I created a flyer that folds down to fit inside a wallet (convenient for students rushing to class) that shows a map of the downtown bars and a description of each. I also made a logo for the event that can be put on various deliverables such as the t-shirt pictured above.
This design was one of four selected from the entire senior class to be presented to officials from city hall. As of May 2018, the City of DeKalb has not decided which design to use.
