Welcome to the UBarU PR list

[Michael Tobis]

Dear folks,

Welcome to the UBarU Communications Team!

To begin with, here is a recap of the Communications initiatives
currently under way or to begin shorty. Your opinions are welcome but
no immediate action is needed.

0) Branding - the prickly pear graphic is charming but limits us. It
speaks of summer camps but not of adult retreats. Jackie and Michael
and Irene discussed the U-U design from the plywood display in the
meeting hall and thought that we could come up with a similar simple,
clean logo like that, with the bar at a slant.

Next steps -
a) Irene is working on cleaning up the logo in Photoshop
b) all - select a color triad for all marketing materials
select a header and a text font for all marketing
materials
should be evocative of Texas and of UBarU


1) Facebook - Jackie is pushing us for some material to keep
the Facebook presence fresh.

Next steps -
a) Irene has to update her FB page, but will then "like" UBarU's FB so
Jackie can make her an administrator
b) We have some shots of Jon Durban's party.

2) Capital Campaign - We are looking to design a prospectus, with
convincing marketing materials conveying a sense of competence without
extravagance to potential donors.

a) Someone contact Alphagraphics and identify appropriate materials
b) Donna to write letter
c) Prospectus pages - site pictures (Irene and Michael)
- proposed facility and site plan
(George)

3) Web Site - Retreats:
a) all- identify a suitable Nuke "skin" with a more modern look-and-
feel that
can be adapted to match the identified fonts and colors
b) rewrite front page material - Michael
c) re-examine interior pages
d) perhaps a YouTube of the site

4) Website - Fundraising
a) separate fundraising from accommodations/visitors info.
b) Possibly a nice elevation drawing of the proposed facility
b) a bio of Dwight Brown
c) perhaps a YouTube of Marie Brown
d) Possibly Jon's chalice-thermometer? can we do this in a more
attractive way? Can we avoid a crude scan?

5) Wiki
More about this later!

Step 0 precedes all others except for the Facebook item.

[Karin Gates]

Thanks Michael,

These are all very good ideas you've presented. Here are some more free
skins to consider:

http://www.dnnstyle.com/cleangreen/Home.aspx
http://www.dnnstyle.com/cleanblue/Home.aspx
http://www.dnnstyle.com/copper/Home.aspx
http://www.dnnstyle.com/ecowebii/Home.aspx
http://www.dnnstyle.com/wornclean/Home.aspx

Of course, you can use your imagination and replace the pictures and logos
in each with UBarU pictures and logos.

The thermostat is actually built using Excel. It's easy to update with
Excel and generate the image that pastes into HTML.

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[Karin Gates]

Lots more free skins available, but here is another one I like a lot:
http://www.dnnstyle.com/watercolor/Home.aspx

-----Original Message-----
From: Karin Gates [mailto:ka...@kewlgeeks.com]
Sent: Tuesday, January 08, 2013 7:05 AM
To: 'Michael Tobis'; 'ubaru-pr'
Subject: RE: Welcome to the UBarU PR list

Thanks Michael,

These are all very good ideas you've presented. Here are some more free
skins to consider:

http://www.dnnstyle.com/cleangreen/Home.aspx
http://www.dnnstyle.com/cleanblue/Home.aspx
http://www.dnnstyle.com/copper/Home.aspx
http://www.dnnstyle.com/ecowebii/Home.aspx
http://www.dnnstyle.com/wornclean/Home.aspx

Of course, you can use your imagination and replace the pictures and logos
in each with UBarU pictures and logos.

The thermostat is actually built using Excel. It's easy to update with
Excel and generate the image that pastes into HTML.


-----Original Message-----
From: ubar...@googlegroups.com [mailto:ubar...@googlegroups.com] On Behalf
Of Michael Tobis
Sent: Monday, January 07, 2013 8:55 PM
To: ubaru-pr
Subject: Welcome to the UBarU PR list

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[Karin Gates]

Here is how the current UBarU logo would look with the EcoWeb skin:
http://www.stonesoupsites.com/dnn/ubaru/OtherSkinSamples/EcoWebIISkin.aspx

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[rel...@satx.rr.com]

Michael,
Thanks for your comments and ideas. I agree that the simple "U-U" logo seems like the best idea. We don't
need the cactuses, and could perhaps thicken the bar a bit so that it doesn't look like just a dash. However,
I do think that the bar should stay horizontal instead of slanted.
On the matter of colors, I think we should stay close to earth colors with nothing too bright. So, how about
gold, some shade of brown or rust, and a mid green (since we want to show our commitment to the environment and
"green" initiatives.)
Roy

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>
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[Jon Durbin]

Will the 'U's look like horseshoes?  Would give it a ranch feel.

Jon

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[Karin Gates]

Another sample:
http://www.stonesoupsites.com/dnn/ubaru/OtherSkinSamples/WatercolorSkin.aspx

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[Karin Gates]

On that page I wouldn't have the white background around the logo. I would
change it to match the blue background with a white or beige lettering and
logo.

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[Jackie Purdy]

Great list to get started!

For Facebook administrator, I just need to know the email that is connected with Irene's Facebook account. You don't even have to "like" the page, but of course, that would be great :)

I'd be interested in helping work on a video for UBarU - We currently have a slideshow video up that shows some nice views of the land, as well as people actively at work or at events. What about UBarU do you want to highlight with this other video? If we can get some shots of people using UBarU for their events, or even short interviews, I think that would be great. Might have to wait until we have some larger groups, but I think it could be worth it.

Can we get some clarification on who is working on the prospectus/brochure? There was another email recently where Mark K. was working on one, and I thought Donna had also been working on a version.... Before we have too many people working on the same thing, can we figure out who is definitively working on it? Maybe all those who have ideas on that can get on an email thread about that together, or bring it here under its own topic?

Once we know what the design of the prospectus/brochure will be then I think contacting Alphagraphics or another printer will be easier.

Jackie

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[Mtobis]

Following along with interest. Irene and I as a coping strategy plan to do most of our email and writing in the evenings.

Quick comment - not wedded to Alphagraphics but have been satisfied with them on projects both in Austin and in Madison

mt

Sent from my iPhone

[Michael and Irene Tobis]

I like this one best so far, but maybe it would be nice to shift the palette.

http://www.stonesoupsites.com/dnn/ubaru/OtherSkinSamples/WatercolorSkin.aspx

Can we run the textures through Photoshop or such and change the colors a bit?

Also I find that most of these are a bit cramped: I hate to be fussy, but, well, I am. I'd prefer larger and cleaner fonts, especially on the navigation elements. Can that be changed?

mt

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[Michael and Irene Tobis]

On Jan 8, 2013, at 9:23 AM, Jon Durbin wrote:

Will the 'U's look like horseshoes?  Would give it a ranch feel.

Jon

There are lots of variations on the theme possible - one possibility is to use a lot of them, one per page. I think various horseshoe motifs are already in use in the meeting hall, and Irene and I in our first round of reorganization have grouped up the actual physical horseshoes in matching pairs to make U-Us in various places.

But I think the plywood placard in the Meeting House (with a sort of a horseshoe motif) is really excellent; I'd like to try using some variation on that as the official letterhead / home page logo. We actually have a nice object to work with here and I'm imagining we can clean it up just a bit and make a lot of use of it.

See attached image.

[Karin Gates]

Unfortunately, we don’t get the pre-sliced .psd files with the skin, so shifting the colors would involve a lot of tedious Photoshop work on every single post-slice element in the skin (very time consuming).

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