Presented by Brittany Ottum, Multimedia & Graphic Designer, Student Unions & Activities. Communicators wear a lot of hats. Often, that hat has a design focus -- either through creating materials for a communicator's organization or department or through working directly with in-house or freelance graphic designers. This presentation focused on both design techniques for communicators to use in their own work to convey clear and meaningful information, and suggestions for effective dialogue between graphic designers and communicators. We walked through design elements and principles that can be implemented in Word, Google Slides, email templates, newsletters and more -- Adobe programs not required! Hierarchy in typography, creation of engaging color palettes, use of contrast and scale to direct the viewers’ eyes, emphasis using symmetrical and asymmetrical balance, just to name a few. We also walked through a design brief to help communicators articulate their needs and desires to a graphic designer and take an overview look at some “design speak” for those unfamiliar with terms like vector images, pngs, hex color codes, and more.