Hey everyone! Welcome to Season 2 of the Open Waters podcast by Mediacurrent. I’m your new host, Susan Cooper. My cohosts Mario Hernandez and Mark Shropshire will be coming to you each month to explore the intersection of open source technology and digital marketing.

In today’s episode we’ll be speaking with Sheree Hill, Creative Director of Mediacurrent and John G., digital designer at Mediacurrent. Both have been doing extensive work in higher education, building design systems, addressing pain points of scale and velocity and bringing brand stories to life.

We’ll explore some of the challenges facing marketers and designers in higher ed, touch on learning modalities and how they function in web and marketing teams, as well as some quick and easy tips to help sharpen your school’s brand strategy and maximize some production workflows.

If you are a marketer, designer or tech lead for higher ed, this episode is for you!

Challenges in higher education marketing:

• Inquiry based learning approaches, such as design thinking exercises to establish guidelines to create richer learning experiences

• Brand guidelines based on the brand workshops to help inform all design decisions and asset production.

• Foundational systems across all touchpoints, not just components, but cloud templates, and even consult on team structure and skill sets.

Tools and Tricks:

• Cloud collaboration - Google Docs for ebook templates

• Processes - legacy content updates

• Brand guide & Brand Kits in Canva

• Component matrix

• Brand strategy planner

Importance of Mission and Vision:

• Guiding light

• Helps inform decisions

For more information, check out Sheree’s Webinar: Leveraging Design Systems to Streamline Web Projects

You can find us at mediacurrent.com/podcast and subscribe on your favorite podcast app. If you liked this episode, share it with your friends and tag @mediacurrent on Twitter. For more resources on open source technology, thought leadership and case studies, visit us at Mediacurrent.com.