Interview

What About Marketing? Featuring an Interview with Alexis Brost

By Bailey McKay

Marketing textbooks

I frequently get asked what I plan on doing with an English degree. Or, what can I do with professional writing? When I answer that I want to work in the marketing field, more questions seem to arise. Many people do not see the connection between marketing and professional writing. However, English majors have a huge skillset to bring into marketing.

Meet Alexis

To explore this topic further, I interviewed Alexis Brost, the Marketing and Member Relations Coordinator at The Club Inc. Her duties include The Club’s quarterly newsletter, (concept, design, writing and photographs) communicating with outside media and sending all emails to members. Alexis graduated from Auburn with a Bachelors in English with a concentration in Literature. She has previously worked on the marketing and social media team for Books-A-Million.

A Piece of Advice

Alexis says her best piece of advice for future English graduates is, “Take a chance on ANY job that accepts a liberal arts degree. In a world that is changing in technology, people want instant and correct communication. English majors are highly attractive candidates for any career.”

What Skills Can Professional Writers Bring to Marketing?

Professional writers bring forth a unique skill set. Not only can they write and edit proficiently, they can also eloquently express themselves. Professional writers have the ability to be creative and think outside of the box; they have a diverse knowledge in reading, writing, rhetoric and many other areas. Lastly, professional writers can communicate effectively, making them a mediator between products and consumers.

According to Alexis, the majority of her English classes have come in handy in her career, but she says that her past Linguistic classes have helped her the most. In Alexis’s current job she has to use HTML coding and programs such as TextEdit, so she emphasized how important her computer classes were as well. (Shout out to Dr. Bacha and Dr. Basilico)

What’s the Takeaway?

I feel like there is a stigma when it comes to being an English major. We have so many positive qualities to offer, and our potential is limitless. When it comes to your career, be bold and take chances. Some things that don’t seem like they fit, like Professional Writing and Marketing, may just be what you’re looking for. HireABlazer is a good place to start looking for potential jobs, internships or job shadowing opportunities.

Beginner’s Tips for Website Design

By Kristen Williams

Courtney Lassiter

With so much taking place online, effectively designing and marketing websites are important skills; but, acquiring those skills can be difficult.

The problem? Apart from taking a Digital Publishing course, there are millions of places to look for advice, but what advice is actually helpful?

I turned to UAB Digital Media for guidance, interviewing Courtney Lassiter, a Media Fellow. Her job involves producing creative content for the University, as well as editing and building websites.

And pursuing a career in graphic design means offering tips on design and marketing is in her wheelhouse.

Below, I’ve condensed her many helpful tips into a few practical ones:

Developing Your Layout

Courtney joked about her habit of analyzing every menu she encounters, but stressed that it’s because of the important role layout plays in any visual medium. It’s a major part of marketing.

“How you lay out the content completely changes the meaning,” she said,
“if you have something that’s poorly laid out it’s not going to convey what you want to say effectively.”

Practical Step: Start on Paper

Creating a “wireframe” sketch for your site’s layout on paper (like this example Courtney traced in Adobe Illustrator) is a great starting point.

example wireframe sketch — Wireframe sketch

Then, a program like Sketch (which she recommended), can help you transition those ideas into your website. “Sketch is cool because it allows you to see the differences between various screen sizes, like desktop, tablets and phones,” Courtney said.

However, Sketch is only compatible with Mac and does charge you yearly,
so you might want to check out some alternatives depending on your budget.

For designing visual content for your site, Canva offers helpful design templates, works on Windows and Mac, and has a free option.

Using Links Effectively

With this tip, Courtney discussed that when linking to other sites you never want to send your audience away completely. That is: you don’t want your audience to leave your site for another within the same tab. Courtney explained that if you link to another site like this “[your audience is] going go there, and they’re going to stay there, and they’ll never come back.”

Practical Step: New Windows

Direct your links to open in a new tab

Instead of leaving your site for another, have links open in a new tab.
She stated, “that way they’ll have to at least come back and exit out of [your site].
Always make them come back to you.”

Be Mindful of Accessibility

This, she claimed, is “the most important part of designing a website.” Courtney said: “if you have a glass hamburger, it’s nice to look at, but you can’t eat it.” That’s a similar problem for a website that’s visually appealing, but lacks accessibility.

Practical Step: Assess Your Content

According to Courtney, some ways to check your website’s accessibility are: assess who it might be alienating, ensure content is functional and, again, examine the layout.

Resources

Additional helpful resources she mentioned were:

Sprout Social for utilizing social media in marketing (yearly fee)
Colour Lovers for creating color schemes (free)
Font Squirrel for designer-approved fonts (free)

Her parting advice: “It’s never going to be perfect.” However, following these tips can put a beginner on track to generating a high-quality website.

The Impact of Social Media on Professional Writing

By Genni Boatwright

Kalyn Wolfe

It doesn’t seem that long ago that social media was just starting out and people were still reading a newspaper or turning on the TV to get the news. I remember when Myspace first started and was more of a dating site than a way to connect with friends. I was on Facebook when only college students were allowed.

It wasn’t long after Facebook began that we saw the social media explosion. Now, there are so many social media sites that I can’t keep up with them all. Social media is no longer just a way to connect with friends and family. It has seeped into professional writing world. It has changed the way we receive our news and advertisements. So many people now rely on social media for their news that news outlets are being forced to adapt their methods of delivering content in order to stay relevant.

To get more insight on the effects of social media on professional writing, I spoke with Kalyn Wolfe. Kalyn is a weekly columnist for the Pensacola News Journal, freelance writer for the New York Times and the Digital Media Specialist for Meyer Vacation Rentals. One of her duties for Meyer is handling their social media accounts; their Facebook profile alone has over 200,000 followers. We spoke about what caused the shift in social media and the impact it had on professional writing. She says,

“Links are what really affected professional writing. Things are now easier with a click of a button, eliminating steps. You only have so many characters to get your audience’s attention. People are learning to work with less but providing more impact. Also, we have new ways of gathering information and people have become less inhibited.”

Professional writers must be careful to avoid writing with the sole intention of getting followers and likes. An article’s title is important, but writers need to avoid being considered clickbait by not giving misleading headlines. Kalyn says,

“You can be a little tongue in cheek with a headline but don’t get too cutesy. Don’t treat it like a teaser and state the facts.”

I asked her what advice she would like to give young professional writers:

“Stay authentic. If you write a story to get more followers, then you won’t be your authentic self. Also, don’t be afraid to have fun but know that as a writer it comes with responsibility.”

An Interview with Scott Thigpen: Graphic Designer

By Sarah Burch

I had heard a lot about Scott Thigpen before I ever met him. You see, my fiancé had taken classes with him here at UAB, and because both Scott and he are bikers they remained in touch outside of class. I knew that Scott had completed the Great Divide Mountain Bike Route, worked on Dreamwork’s Shrek, and recently published a book. He had even told me how down to earth Scott was and how much I’d enjoy interviewing him. When I met him I found a man positioned in front of his recently acquired standing desk in a red t-shirt and jeans. Definitely down to earth.

Scott has worked for anyone from Coke-Cola, to Teen Magazine, to the Wall Street Journal. He started out as an illustrator, but in 2007, when the bottom fell out on the economy, he knew he had to shift his work from just illustrating to graphic design. He worked mostly free-lance.

However, in June of 2013, he took a 22-day break from working in order to ride a bike from Canada to Mexico in a race known as The Great Divide. A daunting task to the least. However, this ride lead to his book: Trail Magic and the Art of Soft Pedaling. Scott says that biking or simply being outside and exercising contributes to much of his inspiration. He found that the route also helped to build his confidence and forced him to a place of positivity.

For those of us wanting to become graphic designers, professional writers, or really anything in the creative realm, it is important to find a place where we can have both inspiration and peace. For Scott, that came from this race. He equates exercise to the “shower epiphany” effect. Basically, if you aren’t consciously thinking about it, you come up with some of your best stuff. However, you can’t draw all of your inspiration from exercising. Sometimes, he says, when he needs inspiration he’ll look at a series of websites. Usually, he starts with dribbble.com (Links to an external site.). Looking at other people’s work, helps Scott to find his own creativity. Maybe Scott wouldn’t approve of this statement, but I’ll make it anyway: To be a great artist, you have to steal from the good ones.

Scott’s most recent design at the time of this interview was for the CAS homepage: an animation of the brain. The left side is blue with mathematical symbols and scientific instruments. Little pulsations that run down pipes carrying knowledge from one place to another. On the right, is a green plain representing art, music, and literature. Tiny cars race down the highways of the brain’s creative right. When you go to the homepage, you can’t miss it. Scott told me that one part he doesn’t like about his job is the way people brag on his work. So, he probably wouldn’t like this part, but it is perfect. It is simple in design, but the contrast between the two sides is so distinct it represents CAS with total accuracy.

When I asked what his favorite piece was, he unsurprisingly told me that his book was the pinnacle of what he would create. “The book is the most epic,” he said. The task of writing it turned out to be daunting in many ways other than just completing route. He said that having to cut out characters, real people he had known, was difficult. At first, he had written too much trying to explain everything that went on in his mind for that 2,745 mile journey. As a result, the book was too long. However, he had a hand in every part of that book. He even designed the cover. Of course, he wanted it to be a good cover because “we do judge books by their cover.” You would pick up his book if you saw it on the shelf.

Scott doesn’t just write creatively. In fact, Scott says he uses professional writing almost everyday. “I wish I used professional grammar,” he told me. He did tell me that although his grammar is not perfect it does seem that as long as he gets “there, their, and they’re” correct there doesn’t seems to be a whole lot of fuss. Most commonly, he uses professional writing to email people. Whether it is to get them to look at some of his work or a simple email to his boss, this is the most common forum for a graphic designer to use professional writing.

We also talked about what every professional writer should know about graphic design. His answer: the basics. He claimed that you could make anything look good, even in Microsoft Word. The key was knowing the basics of graphic design. If you want to really get into the professional writing world he suggested that it was a must to take a course in both graphic design and marketing. The same goes for graphic designers: you should take a course in professional writing and marketing.

A final tip for graphic designers from Scott: observe the world. The one thing that will not go away or be replaced by computers is design.