The main role I have at the Homer Lake Interpretive Center (HLIC) is to facilitate interaction between the center and the public. I do this by designing appealing Facebook posts for programs and events as well as posting images and interpretive material to the page, the Interpretive Center, and around the Homer Lake Forest Preserve.
Champaign County Forest Preserves
At HLIC, I have a large creative influence on the Facebook page. Every few months, I am tasked with creating event covers that are posted to the page. Since this is a regular occurrence, some of my favorite designs come from this work. Below are some designs I’ve come up with.
-“Meet the Critter” program held at HLIC; graphic includes 3 of the Interpretive Center’s resident animals including our leucitic rat snake and 2 painted turtles.
I use Canva to create my graphics, pulling images from CCFPD’s depository of photos as well as my own that I’ve taken at Homer Lake. Clip art and most of the animal photography used in the posts (besides the Interpretive Center’s resident animals) are usually from Creative Commons on Google Images or the collection of images and graphics on Canva.
I rarely use pre-made templates from Canva, opting to design around the text and imagery of the material I am promoting. All work featured on this page is solely my own creative work.
-The 2024 Owl Prowl programs were held in the same month, so having the location of the 2 programs in a specific color helped Facebook users differentiate the programs as easily as possible.
In 2022 I implemented a specialized font for natural programs that has gone on to be used for cultural programs as well, making it a sort of calling-card for Museum & Education programs. Increasing brand recognition and cohesion has helped garner interest in educational programs at the Forest Preserves.
-Again, the same program in the same month, but on different days may be hard to differentiate. Creating unique graphics as well as highlighting the difference in date ensures visitors won’t accidentally sign up for the wrong program.
In September 2023, I started a system that would help event cover graphics appear legible on both mobile and desktop devices. I noticed a lot of Facebook event covers from other pages did not have all the info available to read on my phone unless I tapped the event again and the whole graphic was brought up. To get around this, I roughly measured where text was getting cut off on a previous post and made a template to follow for future event graphics.
-Directly below is the guide I made and use for Facebook event covers since September. Under that is the view of one of the first covers I made using this method shown on the Facebook mobile app (left) and on desktop view (right).
-This is the most recent cover photo created for HLIC (got high praise from the Museum & Education Department’s Director!). The Interpretive Center’s hours were the main focal point, so I proceeded similarly to my process of making event covers and measured what would be cut off on mobile.
-Desktop (left), Mobile (right)
-Open hours signage for HLIC kiosks (a toy monarch butterfly fills the empty space on the right)
-Unused “Snakes of Champaign County” interpretive information (Summer 2023)
At the beginning of 2024, I was asked to expand my duties to include programs out of the Museum of the Grand Prairie as well. Even though outside of my domain at the Homer Lake Interpretive Center, as part of the Museum & Education department I was well equipped to talk with cultural program staff to create their Facebook event covers and program posts.
-2 main page programming posts featuring birds
-2 versions of the remade “Animal Advocates” poster (January 2024). This was very fun to create with the HLIC animals dressed up in winter gear! Of course it doesn’t snow all year long, so a more seasonally appropriate poster now takes its place among the Homer Lake kiosks.
