Two members of the North Idaho College Communications and Marketing Department won district awards through the National Council for Marketing and Public Relations (NCMPR) during their District 7 conference from Oct. 12 through 14.
NIC senior graphic designer Heather Butler earned a gold medal in the poster category for her design of the poster for the NIC wind symphony concert “The British are Coming.”
“That was one of my favorite ones, so I was really pleased,” Butler said.
The “2011 Summer Alumni Connection,” written by NIC Communications and Marketing Coordinator Stacy Hudson, also won the gold medal in the newsletter category.
“It was the first newsletter we’ve done as an interactive online piece rather than just print,” Butler said.
In the spring, the two entries will go on to the national level: the NCMPR Paragon awards.
“Fingers crossed we win,” Butler said.
NCMPR is an organization specifically for the marketing and public relations departments of community colleges. District 7 of NCMPR consists of Oregon, Washington, Idaho, Montana and Alaska, as well as Alberta, British Columbia, Saskatchewan and the Yukon.
“That’s really the true take-away from being part of an organization like this, is working with colleagues who are doing the same job that you’re doing and getting great ideas from them and being able to utilize that resource,” Hudson said.
There were approximately 23 competitive categories, including design, writing, promotional campaign and photography.
“We chose to do some very specific categories, rather than enter all of them,” Hudson said. “[We entered] where we felt we had a stronger body of work to enter.”
There were lectures at the conference as well. The main theme this year was social media and how to use it effectively in community colleges.
“It’s hard to bring back specific points; you just sort of bring back a general idea,” Hudson said. “The idea that the students and population of folks we talk to are on the move, busy, and a part of this instant news culture, that just we as a department are always trying our best to better reach the constituencies that we speak to with our marketing and communication tactics.”
Butler said, “What I took away from it was how I can use the social media experience in designing the pieces [NIC is] using.”
This is the first year that NIC has entered anything into the competition.
“It’s always nice to win awards or be recognized for the work that you do and the things that you’ve spent your life trying to do,” Butler said. “It’s a nice affirmation that you’re doing something correct.”
Both Hudson and Butler said they anticipate that they will participate in this competition again.
“It gives us the opportunity to go through things we’ve done the past year, then have peers from different community colleges give us feedback on what are our strong pieces and what we can improve on, which is part of what I enjoy about the competitions, being able to have that feedback and being able to see what other designers are doing out there,” Butler said.
