Infographics
2016 ECAC-SIDA Table Topics — Graphics/Infographics Presented by Director of Athletic Communications Ken DeBolt, Hobart and William Smith Colleges Twitter: @KenDeBolt, @HWSSID; Instagram: @HWSathletics
BEFORE OPENING PHOTOSHOP • Define your purpose. Will the graphic evoke emotion? Will it deliver information? (Ideally, it does both.) • How will you convey your information? Text, numbers, charts? • How will you deliver the graphic? Each social media app has its own “ideal” size and while its possible to post an Instagram square on Twitter, I prefer to post original content to each stream.
BE INSPIRED • Use social media to follow other athletic departments, professional teams, and graphic artists. Inspiration can come from anywhere. Know where the leading edge is and keep up with the (Bill) Joneses. @NCAAStats produces graphics similar to the image at right, but I wanted one for the William Smith student who is the active career leader in goals per game. I did my best to duplicate the NCAA’s format and asked the NCAA for permission to tweet it out.
BE PREPARED • Hobart lacrosse won the 2016 NEC Championship and AQ into the NCAA tournament. Ahead of the selection show, the “experts” were predicting the Statesmen would play at Air Force or Towson, so I prepared a twitter graphic for both teams and turned on the applicable layers when the pairing was announced. • It’s not always easy to predict tournament fields, but the idea still applies. Use place holders instead (eg. City, State). • Work ahead on things like season/career records and clinching things (eg. playoff berths, regular season titles, etc.). We created several graphics this year that never saw the light of day because the event we were ready for never happened, but it’s better to be prepared than scramble after the fact.
BE ORGANIZED • Whether its managing multiple schools (or is that just me?), multiple sponsors, or multiple layers, use groups to keep the different elements of the graphic organized. Complex graphics with dozens of layers can be challenging to manage if you don’t take care to group elements together.
BE CONSISTENT • When we decided to tweet a postgame score graphic, we identified the sports we would (teams with a final score) and would not (cross country, golf, rowing, sailing) produce them for and presented our plan to the ADs to get buy-in. Having a standard operating procedure for producing graph-
ics makes conversations with coaches/parents/students about why this and not that easier.
BE CONSISTENT • Stick to your graphic standards. Don’t alter your colors or modify your logo. Use a graphic template for a consistent look across sports and across seasons. Be true to your brand.
KNOW YOUR MEDIUM • Each social media app has specific image dimensions that work best. Your Twitter header (1500px x 500px) won’t look right on your Facebook page (851x315). While I could list the best practices dimensions for each app here, it’s a moving target. Your best bet is to Google “2016 social media image sizes” once per season to make sure you have the right size.
DON’T OVEREXTEND • Unless you’re sole task is graphic design, you probably don’t spend all day dreaming up and creating new images, although we all certainly could. Make sure you can sustain the policies and procedures you create. During the 2014-15 season, I did a pregame graphic for men’s and women’s basketball (see right). While they were well received, it was a huge time suck and in the end not worth the effort.
K.I.S.S. • Not every graphic has to be complex. Some of the most effective graphics are incredibly simple. Players celebrating with the word “IN,” punctuated with the NCAA logo says as much if not more than a game recap or game stat infographic.
TAKE A TEAM APPROACH • I’m fortunate to have two assistants and nearly every graphic we create for social media or our website is reviewed by the entire team before it heads out into the world. That collaboration has taken good ideas and made them better while also catching typos or the Photoshop equivalent (why doesn’t the soccer player have a right arm?). If you’re an office of one, your team could be a trusted coach, a student worker, and a campus communications staffer.
ASK QUESTIONS • Few of us are Photoshop experts. The program is so robust that I find myself learning how to do something new on a regular basis. If you see something that inspires you, ask how it was done. There are a lot of giving people in our profession who are quick to share their knowledge. Feel free to reach out to me, I’m happy to help if I can (315-781-3146 or [email protected]).
BEFORE OPENING PHOTOSHOP • Define your purpose. Will the graphic evoke emotion? Will it deliver information? (Ideally, it does both.) • How will you convey your information? Text, numbers, charts? • How will you deliver the graphic? Each social media app has its own “ideal” size and while its possible to post an Instagram square on Twitter, I prefer to post original content to each stream.
BE INSPIRED • Use social media to follow other athletic departments, professional teams, and graphic artists. Inspiration can come from anywhere. Know where the leading edge is and keep up with the (Bill) Joneses. @NCAAStats produces graphics similar to the image at right, but I wanted one for the William Smith student who is the active career leader in goals per game. I did my best to duplicate the NCAA’s format and asked the NCAA for permission to tweet it out.
BE PREPARED • Hobart lacrosse won the 2016 NEC Championship and AQ into the NCAA tournament. Ahead of the selection show, the “experts” were predicting the Statesmen would play at Air Force or Towson, so I prepared a twitter graphic for both teams and turned on the applicable layers when the pairing was announced. • It’s not always easy to predict tournament fields, but the idea still applies. Use place holders instead (eg. City, State). • Work ahead on things like season/career records and clinching things (eg. playoff berths, regular season titles, etc.). We created several graphics this year that never saw the light of day because the event we were ready for never happened, but it’s better to be prepared than scramble after the fact.
BE ORGANIZED • Whether its managing multiple schools (or is that just me?), multiple sponsors, or multiple layers, use groups to keep the different elements of the graphic organized. Complex graphics with dozens of layers can be challenging to manage if you don’t take care to group elements together.
BE CONSISTENT • When we decided to tweet a postgame score graphic, we identified the sports we would (teams with a final score) and would not (cross country, golf, rowing, sailing) produce them for and presented our plan to the ADs to get buy-in. Having a standard operating procedure for producing graph-
ics makes conversations with coaches/parents/students about why this and not that easier.
BE CONSISTENT • Stick to your graphic standards. Don’t alter your colors or modify your logo. Use a graphic template for a consistent look across sports and across seasons. Be true to your brand.
KNOW YOUR MEDIUM • Each social media app has specific image dimensions that work best. Your Twitter header (1500px x 500px) won’t look right on your Facebook page (851x315). While I could list the best practices dimensions for each app here, it’s a moving target. Your best bet is to Google “2016 social media image sizes” once per season to make sure you have the right size.
DON’T OVEREXTEND • Unless you’re sole task is graphic design, you probably don’t spend all day dreaming up and creating new images, although we all certainly could. Make sure you can sustain the policies and procedures you create. During the 2014-15 season, I did a pregame graphic for men’s and women’s basketball (see right). While they were well received, it was a huge time suck and in the end not worth the effort.
K.I.S.S. • Not every graphic has to be complex. Some of the most effective graphics are incredibly simple. Players celebrating with the word “IN,” punctuated with the NCAA logo says as much if not more than a game recap or game stat infographic.
TAKE A TEAM APPROACH • I’m fortunate to have two assistants and nearly every graphic we create for social media or our website is reviewed by the entire team before it heads out into the world. That collaboration has taken good ideas and made them better while also catching typos or the Photoshop equivalent (why doesn’t the soccer player have a right arm?). If you’re an office of one, your team could be a trusted coach, a student worker, and a campus communications staffer.
ASK QUESTIONS • Few of us are Photoshop experts. The program is so robust that I find myself learning how to do something new on a regular basis. If you see something that inspires you, ask how it was done. There are a lot of giving people in our profession who are quick to share their knowledge. Feel free to reach out to me, I’m happy to help if I can (315-781-3146 or [email protected]).
