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Designing a Newsletter

For this assignment, you will design a newsletter that can be printed up and snail-mailed or turned into a pdf and emailed to members.

Newsletters that are emailed can use color with no added expense to the client, so feel free to use color in your work. But you should also look at how the newsletter will appear if your client chooses also to print up copies to disperse at a meeting: if your client chooses to print those newsletters up on a black and white printer, the colors may serve only to make your newsletter less readable in the hardcopy.

Newletters are a form of communication between members of a particular group. They are not a form of publicity for the group, although they may sometimes be used this way. This means that most of the people who receive newsletters are probably happy to receive them: they are the ideal audience of insiders. When newsletters are sent to people who are not full members of the group, however, they become junk mail and may generate negative publicity for the group.

Things to include in a newsletter (regular features):

announcements about upcoming events/meetings
summaries of previous meetings
stories about previous events
short pieces introducing new members or pieces that highlight the accomplishments of one member
announcements about events in the community that might interest members
articles by members about issues relevant to the group
compelling quotes relevant to the group
a regular article by the group's president or by the newsletter's editor
a request for members to contribute to the newsletter
a list of online articles or resources relevant to the group
photos taken at a recent event or meeting
contact information for the group's president, faculty advisor, website, facebook link, newsletter editor
a feedback or survey mechanism

The purpose of a newsletter is to keep group members engaged in the work of the group, exicted about belonging, and informed. As a persuasive document, the newsletter is a reflection of what the group values and what they truly want to believe about themselves. You are simultaneously presenting an image of who the group is and constructing that image for them.

Your client will be concerned with the following:

who will write the newsletter & how do you make sure there's enough copy to fill the document?
who inputs the content and will it be easy for them to do so?
how can they guarantee that the newsletter will look consistent with each new edition & how can they adjust content to make room for new features?
how will they distribute the newsletter & how will they know if members are actually reading/enjoying the document?
can they really do this or is this project doomed to fail for them?

Keep the questions above in mind as you prepare your newsletter. Your job is to prepare a template and mock-up version of the document for them, but ultimately your client must be able to use the document you design.

Sample Newsletters:

These course materials
are licensed by Lori Ostergaard under a
Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-Share Alike 3.0 License.