Beyond the Brochure: Designing the FTIC Communication Journey
At B.C. Design-Creative, we increasingly approach design with a larger question:
How does design help an organization communicate across an entire experience?
Our Seneca Village State University (SVSU) First-Time-in-College Communication Journey Mock-up explores that question through higher education enrollment.
SVSU is a fictional university developed by B.C. Design-Creative as a testing ground for institutional branding, enrollment marketing, communication strategy and experience design. For this project, we moved beyond creating individual admissions materials and designed a connected communication ecosystem spanning inquiry, application, admission and enrollment.
Designing the Journey
Prospective students don't experience a university through one brochure or email. They encounter emails, texts, social media, events, websites, application portals, financial aid reminders and dozens of other touchpoints.
The SVSU mock-up considers how those communications work together.
Instead of simply asking, “What should this email say?” we ask: Where is the student in their journey? What do they need to know? What should they do next? What barriers might prevent that action? What should the institution communicate afterward?
That is communication-system thinking.
From Strategy to Prototype
We extended the communication plan into a conceptual applicant portal (desktop version), with experiences for application status, outstanding requirements, document submission, notifications, help resources and admissions chat.
B.C. Design-Creative isn't positioning itself as the engineering team that would build the underlying admissions software. The value of the prototype is demonstrating what the experience could be before development begins.
A clickable mock-up gives enrollment leaders, communications teams, designers, administrators and developers something tangible to evaluate. Stakeholders can identify missing information, refine workflows and establish priorities before significant resources are committed to implementation.
The prototype becomes a conversation tool.
Beyond Deliverables
A postcard is a deliverable. An email is a deliverable. A portal screen is a deliverable.
A communication journey explains why each exists, when it appears, how it connects to everything around it and what should happen next.
That's where B.C. Design-Creative continues to expand its work: connecting brand, communication strategy and user experience to help organizations think beyond individual pieces and visualize the systems those pieces belong to.
-Creative Fulfillment Team
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