Northstar Travel Group is a media company that focuses on and contributes to the travel industry. The main objective is to promote destinations, hotels/resorts, and services in the travel industry.
As a graphic designer, I am part of TravelPusle which is part of travAlliancemedia family of brands within the Northstar Travel Group that offers a wide variety of digital-only products such as virtual expos, webinars, newsletters, education, and social media initiatives, related to the travel industry. This includes brands such as Travel Agent Academy and Virtual Digital Events.
Travel Agent Academy (TAA) is part of the travAlliancemediaTM Network. This brand offers e-learning courses to travel agents and advisors about the destinations, hotels/resorts,airlines, services and more in order to sell them for luxury, and corporate travel.
My role at TAA is to design professional e-learning courses for travel agents so they can learn topics about the subject that are effective and easy to remember. I help design marketing materials such as web banners and full-page print ads to promote these courses with the creative team. The work demonstrates my adaptability, functionality, accessibility, and fun in designing the course using branding guidelines, colors, images, and typography of each brand to produce these courses.
Behind the Process
The process involved a team with a project manager, designer, and editorial writer who collaborated to build this course together. By listening to the client’s needs, the designer designs the chapter mockup applying the branding guidelines of a client's organization/company, while the writer creates the outline and copy. Once these items are approved after a few revisions, we move into chapter production. During this phase, copy is integrated into the design using content strategy, UI/UX practices, and presentation design principles, all while strictly adhering to brand standards.
Once the course gets finalized after rounds of revisions, the course is launched live so agents can enjoy and learn what they can learn from the course on Travel Agent Academy.
Here are a few samples from successful courses I designed using slide layouts that help accommodate the copy. To learn more, please click on any of the samples to learn about the course.
A single slide layout that introduces Wedding & Events for a hotel & resort brand course. Click on the image to see its landing page.
A slideshow design layout for an airline specialist course for TAA. Click on here to see its landing page.
A map slide from Visit Algarve Portugal Specialist Program Course. Click here to see its landing page to see its landing page on TAA.
Submenus slide is created, and there are many subtopics related to a single topic. Such designs can be divided into tabs featuring pictures, icons, or text to give the gist of what they will learn within the course. Using effective graphics with a unique approach to entice a travel agent's curiosity will keep them engaged. For example, for each area of Baja California, the imagery and icons will do most of the talking, prompting the agent to seek out more information about each subtopic within that area. Click here to learn more about this specialist course on TAA.
A mockup chapter for one of the destination courses, which was later approved, is moving to production, where the dummy copy will be replaced by actual copy written by the editorial. It showcases submenus where slide layers accommodate huge amounts of copy. This is for the Visit Arizona Specialist Program.
NOTE: I also work/assist on other courses, such as:
Choice Hotels, Costa Rica, Dominican Republic, Fort Myers, Greece, Israel, Loreto, National Geographic Lindblad Expeditions, Loreto, Princess Resorts & Hotels, Oasis Resorts and Hotels, The Fives, and more!
Choice Hotels, Costa Rica, Dominican Republic, Fort Myers, Greece, Israel, Loreto, National Geographic Lindblad Expeditions, Loreto, Princess Resorts & Hotels, Oasis Resorts and Hotels, The Fives, and more!
Marketing Materials for Travel Agent Academy
In addition to designing e-courses, I also help design marketing materials to promote them, such as web banners and full-page print ads. In 2024, TAA underwent a rebrand. I was tasked with redesigning banners and a full print ad to match the website's look. Here are the web banners that were presented on Travelpulse Canada by Northstar.