A communications system residents can recognize, follow, and use.
Ypsilanti Township is asking for more than a visual refresh. The scope calls for a working communications partner: someone who can strengthen the brand, produce public-facing materials, build recurring content, support community storytelling, and help staff carry the system forward.
Consistency without making the Township feel generic.
The work is to create continuity across the places residents already encounter Township information - social media, newsletters, direct mail, public materials, short-form video, and everyday departmental communication.
My approach is to build enough structure that the Township becomes immediately recognizable, while keeping the system flexible enough for real municipal work: changing priorities, multiple departments, public deadlines, recurring information, and moments that need a fast response. The result is not a campaign that disappears after launch. It is a usable communications system.
Six connected parts, managed as one system.
Brand refinement + standards
Review the existing identity, clarify visual and messaging standards, improve consistency, and create practical guidance staff can use.
Public-facing materials
Design and refine graphics, outreach materials, brochures, signage, reports, recurring templates, and ad hoc communications across print and digital.
Social content system
Branded graphics, copy support, repeatable content structures, and a practical visual rhythm that can respond to Township priorities.
Community stories + short video
Develop simple social video and storytelling formats centered on Township history, people, places, programs, and community assets.
Newsletter + direct mail
Copywriting, design, layout, and coordination support for quarterly newsletters, email communications, and direct-mail pieces.
Strategy + staff support
Monthly planning with leadership, strategic communications counsel, brand training, and flexible support when priorities shift.
Built for the pace of municipal communication.
Align
Monthly planning with Township leadership sets priorities, deadlines, audiences, and the work that needs to move first.
Build
Develop the brand system, templates, creative assets, editorial structures, and content needed for recurring use.
Publish
Produce clear public-facing materials across social, print, email, direct mail, short video, and priority communications.
Refine
Review what is working, adjust the system, document standards, and leave staff with tools that get easier to use over time.
Start with the system, then let the content move faster.
Audit the current brand and external communications, align priorities with leadership, identify recurring content needs, and establish the working rhythm.
Refine brand standards, build priority templates, begin recurring social and publication support, and develop the first community-storytelling formats.
Put the system into wider use, train staff on brand application, refine based on real production needs, and establish the next quarter's communications plan.
I have done this work from both sides of the municipal desk.
My background combines civic communications leadership, publication design, public-facing creative systems, editorial planning, social content, community engagement, and the operational work required to keep all of it moving.
In Cleveland Heights, I moved from vendor to Communications Specialist to Director of Communications, building the department, hiring staff, rebuilding recurring communications, directing public-facing creative work, and creating systems meant to function across departments rather than around one person.
Design the work so staff can keep using it.
A municipal brand is only useful when it survives the handoff. Templates, standards, source files, editorial rhythm, naming conventions, and documented decisions are part of the deliverable - not cleanup after the fact.
Ongoing branding, creative, social content, publication support, community storytelling, strategic guidance, monthly planning, and brand training within the agreed monthly service level.
Additional copywriting, expanded social planning, advertising consultation, or work beyond the monthly service level, only with prior Township approval.
Structured for the minimum initial term described in the solicitation, with renewal and future service level adjustments by mutual agreement.
The larger body of work behind the proposal.
Communications Department Design
Structure, standards, workflows, staffing, and visual systems developed to support public communication across City departments.
City News
Editorial restructuring, list hygiene, cadence, content direction, and public-facing newsletter work designed to make recurring City communication more useful.
FOCUS Magazine
Editorial direction and publication design for civic storytelling, developed first as vendor work and later managed from inside municipal communications.
Cain Park 2025 Season
A public arts campaign designed to stay recognizable across posters, calendars, social graphics, stickers, and changing event information.
One partner for the system and the work moving through it.
Frances Eugenia Design would bring municipal communications judgment, editorial discipline, and hands-on creative production to the Township's ongoing branding and communications work.
Frances Eugenia Design
frances@franceseugenia.com
(231) 321-1100
franceseugenia.com
Contact Frances