Marketing & Advertising
D'Youville University Fall Open House Campaign
A campaign for D'Youville University's Fall Open House, including a square ad, a leaderboard, and a direct mailer built from one visual system.
The task
As part of an interview for a Creative Designer role at D'Youville University, I was asked to develop campaign materials for their Fall Open House. This is that work: a square social ad, a leaderboard banner, and a direct mailer, all built from a single visual system. It's an independent concept created for the interview. D'Youville did not commission, publish, or endorse it.
The problem and my solution
Open house materials have to do two jobs at once: reach prospective students and their families, and fit a brand that's already out there. When I studied D'Youville's 2025 campaign and their new brand guide, one thing stood out. The red treatment sits so close in tone to everything around it that the students get swallowed by the background instead of coming forward. I built the system around contrast, using the brand's own language to get there. Natural, full-color photography reads instantly against the red instead of blending into it, and the Y from the wordmark frames each subject and points the eye to center. The pattern system sits back at low opacity so the photography comes forward, and color follows the guide's 70/30 primary-to-secondary ratio. That system runs across a 1080 × 1080 square social ad, a 728 × 90 leaderboard, and a 6×9 direct mailer built to be usable, with event details, postage indicia, and a QR code to register. I chose a mailer over a flyer on purpose: a flyer mostly reaches people already on campus, while a mailer reaches prospective students and their families at home, which is who an open house is for.
