Creating Marketing Materials
What Information to Include
When creating your marketing materials, you’ll want to include the name of the event, the date and time, the location and/or link to the virtual event, ticket information, a brief description, the name or logo of the organization sponsoring the event, an image, and where to go for more information. Always include the primary PSU logo (preferred), or your school, college or unit’s secondary PSU logo.
Marketing Collateral
Consider creating one or more of the following types of marketing materials:
- 11 x 17 posters
- 8.5 x 11 fliers
- Half page or quarter page handbills
- Email messages
- Graphics for inclusion in email newsletters
- Social media images/graphics
- Print ads (for publications such as Vanguard, Willamette Week, Pamplin Media or The Oregonian)
- Digital ads (for online publications)
- Sandwich boards/sidewalk signs
- Digital signage graphics for on-campus TV monitors
- Signage to direct attendees at the event itself
Size Requirements by Platform
- Emma - email marketing
- Email header: 600-700 x 100-200 pixels
- Facebook
- Landscape: 1,200 x 630 pixels
- Portrait: 630 x 1200 pixels
- Square: 1200 x 1200 pixels
- Stories: 1080 x 1920 pixels
- Cover Photo: 851 x 315 pixels
- Instagram
- Square Grid: 1080x1080 pixels
- Portrait Grid: 1080 x 1350 pixels
- Landscape Grid: 1080 x 566 pixels
- Stories/Reels: 1080 x 1920 pixels
- Twitter
- Landscape: 1024 x 512 pixels
- Cover photo: 1500 x 1500 pixels
- Flier
- 8.5x11”: 2550 x 3300 pixels
- Poster Sizes
- 4x6” postcard: 500 x750 pixels
- 5x7” postcard” 650x875 pixels
- 11x17” poster: 3300px x 5100px
- 16x20” poster: 2000 x 2500 pixels
- 16x24” poster: 2000 x 3000 pixels
- 20”x30” poster: 4000 x 6000 pixels
- TV Screens
Make Your Marketing Materials Accessible
- Ensure that electronic materials are accessible to those with vision, hearing and other impairments, language barriers and any other issues that might present a challenge for your audience. (Refer to the Digital Accessibility Support webpage for more information.)
- Use a sans serif font with 18 pt. as a minimum for a standard font size and 14 pt. as a minimum for a bold font.
- Use contrasting colors to make materials easily readable. (An online tool like the WAVE: Web Accessibility Evaluation Tool can assist with this.)
- Provide alternative text for all images.
- Avoid using images that include embedded text. Screen readers used by those with impairments cannot read text within images. If you do have text on images, repeat the text in the caption whenever possible.
- Avoid elaborate backgrounds or patterns that may make print more difficult to read.
- Consider having a diverse group of people review materials before printing and distributing. Ensure that marketing materials reflect the diversity of our campus, both with language and images.
- Consider providing advertisements and other media in multiple languages.
- Consider using emojis! They are described aloud by screen reader software.
Make Your Marketing Materials Reflect PSU’s Embolden Brand
To ensure that your materials reflect PSU’s inclusive, bold, welcoming and empowering image in our community, follow the Embolden brand guidelines. Ready-made templates for posters, fliers, emails, one-pagers, ads, and other resources using the PSU standard Embolden brand are available on the Tools and Templates website. and via a PSU Canva Pro account. Save time by using these templates!
Canva
Canva is a free-to-use graphic design tool that can be used to create social media and web graphics, posters, fliers, email headers, invites and more. The program includes templates, fonts, colors and images for users to incorporate into their designs, and it also allows users to save brand-specific fonts and colors and apply them to their designs.
Paid PSU Canva Pro accounts launched in July 2022. If you are interested in joining in and have not signed up already, please contact University Communications at ucomm@pdx.edu.
The PSU Canva Pro account will give you access to:
- PSU/Embolden branded templates
- PSU brand kit with logos, colors, and fonts
- PSU style guide for Canva
University Communications will contact you with details once access is granted.
A wide variety of Canva templates designed to our PSU Embolden brand standard are available via a PSU Canva Pro account. Save time and use these templates for your next project!
Printing Your Materials
Below are a few printers that are near campus and have printed materials for PSU events and organizations in the past:
Before contacting a printer for a bid, put some thought into the following considerations. Do you need color, or will black and white suffice? What weight, type and size paper do you need?
- Color vs. BW
- Paper type, weight, size
- Trimming, bleeds and folding (ask the printer for the exact specifications, such as type of file, crop marks and margins that they’ll need in order to produce your project correctly)
- Quantity
- Off-set vs. digital
- Paper or digital proof
- Do they offer a PSU discount
- Consider sustainability — are you using paper made from recycled content? Are you selecting a product that can be recycled or reused?
- Budget
Short Links & QR Codes
Aim for URLs that are short and easy to remember and share.
- Short links (or “aliases”) can be created within pdx.edu
- Custom short links can be made for free on Bit.ly
- QR codes can also be created for free on many websites such as QR Code Generator