Museum of the City of New York

Premium Content, available only to Faces of Design's Professional Members. Please register for your free trial membership.

Professional Member
Niall O'Kelly's picture

Niall O'Kelly

Industry: Graphic design
Position: Principal designer
Agency: { okellydesign }


The Museum of the City of New York is a small museum with a large mandate—it is the keeper of the history of New York City and State history. Every year it hosts NYC history day as part of the national history day campaign. While working with MSDS, I designed a campaign to encourage participation amongst teachers and students. The campaign comprised an identity, save-the-date postcard, an invitation to the event, and then various items of signage and leaflets for the award-ceremony itself.

In order to ensure that this event stood out from the usual pile of literature in teachers inboxes I designed the pieces to be highly eye-catching and memorable. A graphic and clear identity was designed with strong, engaging typography in support. The theme of the event, conflict and compromise (about which students would have to create presentations), was illustrated in a more unusual manner than educators might be used to. The importance and scale of the event was underscored throughout each piece in the confidence and tone with which it was presented.

The postcard and invitation were printed using two spot colours (keeping costs down for this small museum) on uncoated stock. Unusually, the two spots were mixed and overlaid to create gradients and tints, a process that needs careful pre-press work and a high attention to detail as there is no way to know if it is set up correctly until it goes on press. Thankfully it came out very well, and the piece proved very successful with the highest participation and attendance rate for History Day ever.

Available for: Networking, Freelance Projects, Advice & Consultation
Professional contact:
Contact me either through this site, or better yet, via my own site and email.

Skills

IT
5Adobe Creative Suite
4Microsoft (Word, Excel, Powerpoint)
Crafts/Manual
5Typography
5Color Theory
5Print Production
5Photography (Photo-Direction)
4Psychology and Strategy
4Photography
1Coding / Site Development
Languages
5English
4German
3Irish
Other
5Sustainable design
5Brand Development
5Project Management
4Strategy
4Copy-Writing and Editing