Suzanne Veenstra

Living Life with Food

Suzanne — Sat, 18 Feb 2012 23:45:23 +0000

A friend of mine asked me to help her with her blog called “Living Life with Food.” The blog is essentially a cook book of recipes that she has either created, adapted or changed to fit into her family’s dietary preferences- whole grains, non-processed sugars and better dairy. The blog came after a number of requests from friends for Jenn to share her recipes and so the blog began. Living Life with Food has always been one of my favourite blogs to visit but the esthetics needed a little work.

A brand, or character was what the blog was truly lacking and so before I began, we set a few goals to help us in the process:

Make it fun and creative
Use strong colours
Keep it easy for readers to find recipes

1. Make it fun and creative

What better way to keep things fun than with a cartoon. Using Adobe Illustrator, I created a character for the blog that would both exemplify Jenn and also promote a fun feel. The Cook logo adds a flare on each page and is fun, flirty and funky.

2. Use strong colours

Jenn wanted strong and bold colours, no milky tones for her. After some back and forth, the colour scheme was chosen with ORANGE as the background. Wow!

3. Keep it accessible

Being a blog dedicated to recipes, we thought it would be a good idea to have a cookbook viewing option. Under the tab, “Cookbook” I created a way for readers to browse through the recipes by category. With a readership who may or may not be very online savvy, I decided it was important to make it very easy for readers to find what they are looking for and so mimicking the table of contents of a physical cookbook I made all recipes accessible by category. So if they want to look for desserts, they can click on the dessert link and all the dessert recipes are there. Easy as pie.

Working the Jenn was so much fun and after it was all said and done, the blog looks great and I’m hungry for some tasty Chocolate Nut Truffles!

Challenge or Adventure!

Suzanne — Sat, 28 Jan 2012 19:22:03 +0000

Moving to a new city is a challenge for anyone; new people to get to know, new environments to get used to, and new workplaces to get familiar with. This can be very stressful and a heavy load to bear. For me, the decision to move to Ottawa, was made by choice and so I didn’t want to be weighed down by the challenge of it all but wanted to be excited about the adventure. I wanted to take the opportunity to explore new territories, try new things and test out some new skills. But sometimes, even an adventurer likes to start with something familiar: United Way.

Back at home, United Way St. Catharines was an organization that was passionate about the community, gave back to the community and was run by the community. I always admired the vision and mission of the organization and so when moving to Ottawa, I decided that I would try to connect with the local chapter as a way to enhance my adventure.

After an information interview with the Director of Communication, it became clear that her needs and my skills were going to be a great match and so I began volunteering in the communications department with the task of reviving and re-tweaking the online presence for a local project called Kind Ottawa. Kind Ottawa, climaxing with Kindness Week (February 17-24), is a fabulous initiative in its fifth year, that promotes kindness throughout the community. United Way Ottawa, along with its community partners, encourages Ottawaians to be kind and make their City a kinder place, through random acts of kindness, community events and local volunteerism. It was my job to start the promotion of this great initiative with two online tools.

The first tool was a Facebook Page, available to both users and non-users alike. The goal was to create a platform for users to share stories, generate ideas and access important information about the initiative. Creating seven static pages, including a calendar of events, sponsor page and about page, the Kind Ottawa Facebook Page is customized to act as a mini website with interactive abilities. After one month of being active, our content has been viewed by over seven thousand people and is “Liked” by just under 200. We’re making progress.

The second tool that was created was a new website: kindottawa.ca. My task was to customize a wordpress.com template to highlight important information and promote our new Facebook page and existing Twitter feed. Working with the sites CSS, I customized the layout, fonts, sizes and positioning of the content and then tag-teamed with the Communications team and a graphic designer, to create a visually appealing site completely customized to the requests of the department. In the month of January, the page has received over one thousand views, and is growing in popularity. Again a good start.

My time with United Way Ottawa has been nothing but an adventure, giving me the opportunity to explore new territories, try new things and test out some new skills. Thank you to all the staff who welcomed me, put their faith in my abilities and stepped out and showed true kindness to me. You have eased the weight of the challenge of moving and have most definitely helped create excitement for the adventure I am on.

Employer Appreciation

Suzanne — Mon, 05 Dec 2011 18:56:36 +0000

With the holidays coming up, I thought I would showcase some festive material that I created earlier this year. Though this work was not created for a Christmas event, it had a warm feel that I think is fitting for the season.

Last year I was able to volunteer with my husband’s student association, HR@Niagara, to do some desktop publishing. The student run club put on an employers appreciation dinner where all employers of their internship program where invited to a formal dinner at a local restaurant. The event aimed to show the students’ gratitude to the employers for the opportunities they gave them. HR@Niagara asked if I would be willing to help with the invitations, tickets and name badges. I agreed without hesitation.

HR@Niagara was looking for an invitation that looked professional, elegant and inviting. They wanted the text to be concise, their logo to be prominent and the images to be festive. Below are the final results of my work.

the invitation that was sent via email

the ticket that was sent to all attending guests

an example of the name badge that was made for each guest

The event was a smashing success.

Women4Women

Suzanne — Wed, 16 Nov 2011 16:46:22 +0000

This past month I have been working on some communication tools for Women4Women, located in St. Catharines, Ontario. Women4Women is a small community-grounded outreach that provides a safe place for women of the Queenston Street Community to gather, exchange ideas, emotions and their lives. It is an incredible centre offering a wide variety of services and programs on a weekly basis. Women4Women is a truly inspiring place and so I was more than happy to volunteer my time in helping to spread the word about the work they are doing.

The first communication tool that I created was a three-fold information brochure. Being a grass-root organization, Women4Women needed a tool that they could hand out to community contacts, potential partners and funders. The objective was to give readers an idea of what Women4Women is, in as few words as possible. The director of Women4Women’s philosophy is “a picture says a thousand words” and so the focus of this brochure was the faces of Women4Women.

Created using Adobe InDesign

The other tool that was requested was a new website. Women4Women has had a website for a couple of years, however the woman who was running the website moved to a new community and was unable to maintain the old site. Women4Women’s director took this opportunity to create a new website and asked for my help.

Some requirements for the site were a)it need to be free b)accessible by multiple administrators c)easy to edit and update d)very user friendly as the main administrator has zero web development experience and e) simple and clean. I decided to go with Blogger as my host as it met all my requirements. Using the already established brand, I created a simple, clean and easily managed website/blog for the group. The community administrator can now go in, make additions, on their own, while still feeling good about the end product. I am pleased to launch www.w4w-queenston.blogspot.com.

Prezi Presentation

Suzanne — Fri, 14 Oct 2011 18:11:40 +0000

As a Communications Professional it is important to keep up-to-date with the latest communication tools and softwares. I do admit that I have been slacking in this area, but due to some recent encouragement I am exploring the world of Prezi. Prezi is an online software to create impressive presentations. What makes Prezi unique is the ability to zoom in, move around the page and highlight key information, through movement.

For my first attempt at a presentation, I created a presentation of my resume. Take a look and tell me what you think.

WARNING: You may get motion sick during Prezi presentations.

New Blog

Suzanne — Wed, 07 Sep 2011 14:21:24 +0000

My husband and I just moved to Ottawa for a new adventure and to explore professional opportunities in a new city. As a way to communicate with family and friends back home, I decided to create a personal blog to track our journey. Feel free to check out what we are up to in O-Town.

Branding

Suzanne — Tue, 06 Sep 2011 20:05:25 +0000

For the past half a year I have had the privilege of being a part of a marketing team for a new food coop starting up in St. Catharines, Ontario. It has been an fabulous adventure, learning about the dynamics of a coop, how coops work around Canada and how we fit in to the network around us.

With an increased following, we decided it was time to brand ourselves as we were gaining more recognition within the area. I volunteered to put together a logo and also a briefing sheet as tools of communication. I felt it was important that there be a consistent message across all forms of communication and a logo would help us do this. A briefing sheet can be a useful tool when inviting new partners to the table and spreading the word among possible members.

Here is what I created.

Briefing Sheet2

Program Logo

Suzanne — Thu, 11 Aug 2011 21:19:39 +0000

Recently I was asked to help develop the logo for a regional program funded in part by the United Way of St. Catharines and Niagara- After School Matters. The program offers after school programming for kids in under privileged neighbourhoods. My task was to create a logo that was simple, clean, recognizable and transferrable to other mediums.

True Community Collaboration

Suzanne — Mon, 18 Jul 2011 17:36:00 +0000

For the past year I have had the unique opportunity to facilitate a community-initiated project in Western Hill, St. Catharines, as Community Animator with the RAFT. It has been a privilege to work with residents, businesses, government and community partners to initiate and develop the Train Station Revitalization Project including a fabulous community mural project. The success of the project is a great example of what can be achieved when an idea for change comes from the ground up and is met by those with influence and resources. This is what can happen with true community collaboration:

Thank you to the St. Catharines Standard for helping us spread the word about this great community initiative. We look forward to seeing this work of art take shape.

Seminar Summary

Suzanne — Fri, 15 Jul 2011 21:47:21 +0000

Along with the marketing team for a food coop that I am apart of, we attended a seminar on market research at the St. Catharines Enterprise Centre. The seminar was on the basics of market research. This summary gives you an idea of the types of reports and summaries that I am capable of.