People love the great outdoors, but unintentional injuries can turn an exciting hiking trip into a nightmare. The Public Risk Management Program (PRMP) of the National Park Service (NPS) uses public health strategies to address risk factors and promote preventative measures to reduce said injuries.
As a graphic designer for the PRMP, my main responsibility involves creating public visual material that's educational, accessible, and beautiful, all while accurately representing NPS's brand. Success in this role requires me to identify target audiences for each project and address their specific needs.
One of my most notable contributions is the evaluation of a heat safety campaign, resulting in valuable insights that would be implemented in the next campaign, the water safety campaign.
As my work is still ongoing, some later projects remain unfinished.
The PRMP's Trip Plan Template is intended to help visitors capture important information about their trip. The document should be handed over to a trusted contact, so that in the case of an emergency, the contact can provide search and rescue professionals with the info they need.
My role was to redesign the document to include updated safety language and graphics and to refresh it with NPS's updated aesthetic.
Sketches, wireframes, and illustrations were iterated upon many times following feedback and discussion.
The PRMP's Emergency Plan is intended to be a reference for visitors that'll guide them with actionable steps if they find themselves lost or injured, the most common emergencies at national parks.
My role was to redesign the document to include updated safety language and graphics and to refresh it with NPS's updated aesthetic.
The Heat Safety Campaign consists of a series of NPS's social media posts during July 2023 that aims to deliver safety messages about heat to the general public for the purpose of reducing heat-related injuries. At the center of the campaign lies a set of infographics.
Although I was not directly responsible for creating the infographics, my role in this project included ideation and feedback for the infographics, as well as conducting the formal evaluation of the campaign after it has ended.
My evaluation of the campaign discusses the purpose and background of the campaign, program fidelity and implementation, results in terms of social media engagement, as well as recommendations for the next campaign. It's meant to serve as not only documentation of the campaign, but a point of comparison and guidance for future campaigns.
For example, one trend I noticed pertains to Instagram stories (this form of posting involves a carousel of image slides). Our infographics, the core of the campaign and what we really want our followers to see, tended to be on the later slides. This resulted in lower viewership for the infographic when compared to earlier slides in the story (infographic views are indicated in green in the graph below).
Thus, I recommended PRMP to shorten the overall campaign length and bring the infographics as forward as possible in the order of slides to boost their viewership.
As a direct result of my recommendation, the next PRMP social media campaign (next section, the ongoing Water Safety Campaign) has made the suggested reformats in efforts to increase infographic views.
Other analyses include, but are not limited to, optimizing visual design formats, hashtags as a tool, and the efficacy of a cohesive campaign theme.
The Water Safety Campaign is an ongoing work-in-progress scheduled to be implemented in May 2024. It addresses the "layers of protection" a swimmer should consider, such as the usage of lifejackets and designating a water watcher. Like the Heat Safety Campaign, it will be shared through NPS's social media accounts.
My role is to take the lead on designing a set of 5 infographics that will be used to deliver the safety messages.
These are still unfinished works and subject to much change.
