Category: Portfolio

Press Release for VVAF Information Management & Mine Action Programs

Press Release: Strategy, Copy Development, & Editing

One of the programs at Vietnam Veterans of America Foundation (VVAF) was active in Afghanistan helping to create maps and rid its mine fields of unexploded ordnance. A cartoonist learned about VVAF’s iMMAP and included the organization in his story line. It was my job to collaborate with iMMAP, the cartoonist and his syndicator, to develop a press release. Funky Winkerbean VVAF 1

  • Copy/ text development and editing. This was a collaboration with King Features to make sure we complied with their language requirements. The press release still exists on the King Syndicate website!
  • Communications Strategy. Along with the announcement of the comic strip, we organized for small “town hall” events where people could chat with our iMMAP program leaders and/or the cartoonist to talk about their process, what they knew about the situation in Afghanistan, and other things they knew.

Click here to see the full press release as a .pdf: Funky Winkerbean 28.06.2005 Cynthia Thomet

Akaku: Maui Community Media, Brochure

Print Matter: Brochure

Akaku Brochure cover
Click the image to see a .pdf of the whole brochure!

I wrote all the copy and developed the concept for this multi-fold, bang-tail brochure. Akaku: Maui Community Media needed something that could explain the concept behind the organization — not only as a television station, but as a community resource. The “bang-tail” is a perforated, self-gluing mailer that you can tear off, and insert your check-donation into.

We were also launching the freshly-designed blog website around the time of the printing of this brochure — so we wanted to feature the website address prominently.

This was one of my first big projects for Akaku. The brochure was released in 2008, if I remember correctly.

Designer: Robert Glick of Glick Design. We also arranged a photo shoot to get some of the great photography.

VVAF (Vietnam Veterans of America Foundation), Annual Report

Printed Matter: Annual Report

Screen Shot 2015-08-01 at 17.07.55Sixteen-page Annual Report to communicate this international humanitarian aid organization’s multiple programs around the world. We decided on an document that could be posted in the regular mail and wouldn’t be too bulky. The size for this report was a regular US-letter-size folded in half. This 2004 Annual Report was delivered on-budget and on-deadline in July 2005. (I had begun working for VVAF in May 2005.)

Concept and Copy Development: Cynthia T. Luna

Photography & Design: Researched in company’s files. I vetted all permissions for the designer. (Unfortunately, I can’t remember who the designer for this project was — he also helped on a few other design projects the VVAF and The Justice Project.)