Every day, great events on campus inspire, teach, motivate, and entertain our community. Academic programs, initiatives, and various other activities accomplish much of the same. Our Design Services team works with offices across the campus to create the designs that show up on brochures, Web graphics, booklets, posters, flyers, and a wide variety of other materials.

We want to help you but we need you to help us first. Please keep these points in mind when you sit down to think about drawing attention to your event or activity:

  1. Planning, planning, planning. Time is an oft-ignored element of great design. Simply put, as soon as you know the critical details – time and date, place, title, name of speaker(s) – please contact Design Services for support: Submit a request through the online service request form (use your FLAS credentials to login). Using Design Services not only helps you obtain a great design, it also makes raising awareness about your event much easier. You’ll get more people at your event the sooner you plan and alert the Design Services team. Requests to Design Services should be submitted at least two weeks before you need the material. If you want help putting together a communications plan, call the Office of Communications!
  2. If you must design materials on your own, please follow our Branding Rules. The College has a logo and specific rules on its use. We have a specific dolphin design we use, too. Whenever the rules are not respected, the College’s identity takes a hit. People get confused about who we are and what we represent. Please do not invent logos or misuse the College’s logo. A cheat sheet on branding is attached to this email – please let us know if you have any questions.
  3. The College’s full Visual Identity guide is available as a PDF from Design Services and, along with the College logo, is available in the downloads section of the Design Services Website. Use your FLAS credentials to login to obtain access to these important resources.
  4. Please note that CUNY has a new logo! Please do not use the old CUNY logo. The new CUNY logo is available online.
  5. The use of copyrighted materials puts the College at risk of legal action – please do not use copyrighted images or other material in anything you design. Please note: Just because an image or graphic is online does not mean it is OK to use. (A tip: In general, a creative commons license permits use of images as long as you credit the source. Modify the search terms in image databases like flickr to show only creative commons licensed material.) This is another good reason to use Design Services – we have access to a library of images and designs. If you find something online, please ensure that its license permits its use for your project – and do not use it if the license does not.

For more information, please contact Janice Awerbuch (janice.awerbuch@csi.cuny.edu), Director of Design Services.