Central New York School Boards Association

COLLABORATIVE LEARNING

The Central New York School Boards Association partnered with Cayuga-Onondaga BOCES to produce new letterhead, envelopes, presentation folders, business cards and other branding/support materials for CNYSBA and the Statewide School Finance Consortium.

“It’s an example of synergy – and a really nice match-up for us,’’ says CNYSBA Executive Director Charles Borgognoni. “We utilized our own kids for a project we needed to get done.’’

The project began by chance. Borgognoni and CNYSBA Executive Assistant Janet Smith visited Cayuga-Onondaga BOCES in Auburn while scouting school sites to host a CNYSBA training session. Superintendent William Speck gave them a tour of the Career and Technical Education Center, which included a stop in the Graphic Design and New Media laboratory. There, Borgognoni viewed some of the work done by students in the two-year program, which is designed to offer high school juniors and seniors broad-based instruction and intensive applied learning experiences in the visual communications field.

Terry Cuddy integrated the project into his curriculum and assigned the hands-on work to two students. Nick Verdi, a senior at Auburn High School, worked on the design of the CNYSBA materials and Marie Foraker, a senior at Union Springs High School, worked on the design of the SSFC materials. Bill Keeler, of Media Corp. in Ilion, supplied new logos to work with – a modern, green and white block-letter design for CNYSBA and more traditional, red and black logo for SSFC.

Borgognoni, who brings more than 30 years experience in public relations and communications strategy to CNYSBA, set up a “client meeting” with Cuddy and the students to discuss with them our needs and expectations for the design of materials and the message he wanted them to convey.

“I spoke with the students about the importance of graphic design in communications,” he said. “I also talked with them about what a great field I always thought graphic arts was. It’s fun because it allows you to really use your creativity to convey messages.’’

Borgognoni met with the students a few weeks later to review designs, “just as we would with any graphic designer we hired.’’ Cuddy and his students visited Jacobs Press in Auburn (right), and worked with the company to produce our new materials. The students learned about paper stock, printing and production processes, quality control checks and turnaround times for orders. Cuddy and his students presented Borgognoni with the finished products at the end of December.

“We try to limit our outside projects to two projects a year,’’ Cuddy said. “This one started in September and allowed us to work along with our textbooks and curriculum. It really worked out well.’’

The finished product now serves as the official letterhead and envelopes for CNYSBA.

“It was a project about interaction and relationship-building and, in the end, satisfaction,’’ said Borgognoni. “The students got something out of it, and we got something out of it.’’