Kristie Ruiz

As Dual Enrollment Liaison at Ohlone College, I created "Ohlone Access" — a monthly newsletter and standalone visual brand for communicating college and career center info directly to students. Rather than using a generic institutional template, I built a distinct identity from the ground up, centered on a simple idea: make it feel like it's coming from a real person, not an office.

 

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The Challenge

Students routinely tune out official-looking school communications (flyers and newsletters) that read as institutional get skimmed or ignored entirely, (RSVP deadlines, event dates, drop-in hours). The challenge was designing something that would actually get read and remembered by a teenage audience already tuning out most of what lands in front of them.

 

My Approach

• Built a standalone brand, not just a flyer.

  • "Ohlone Access" became a recognizable, recurring identity. A name, a visual style (halftone textures, bold outlined type, a ticket/access-card motif), and a consistent monthly format students could learn to recognize and expect.

• Made it personal.

  • Rather than an anonymous office announcement, the newsletter opens with my own photo and a first-person introduction ("Hello, I am Ms. Kristie...") — lowering the barrier for students to actually reach out with questions instead of feeling like they're contacting a faceless department. I get a countless amount of new subscribers so it is crucial that they know who I am.

• Organized dense information through color, not just copy.

  • Drop-in hours, an info session RSVP, a parent night date correction, and a college fair all needed to live in one piece without overwhelming the reader — I used distinct color-blocked sections (a green "Insider" block, a purple footer, etc.) to separate categories at a glance rather than relying purely on text hierarchy.

• Closed the loop on logistics.

  • Every action item included exactly what a student would need to follow through. Specific hours, a room number, how to RSVP.

 

Outcome​

Each issue reached roughly 60–100 students.

Info sessions promoted through the newsletter consistently booked out: capped at 30 students per session, with 2 sessions held in fall and 3 in spring, all filling.

Demand extended beyond the sessions themselves: 1:1 follow-up meetings were consistently overbooked, running at 4 per day.

Workshops were held on a more scattered, as-needed basis alongside the core newsletter and info session cadence.