I created the WPA style guide in the Technical Style and Editing class, taught by Dr. Cindy Nahrwold, in the spring semester of 2015.

This was a collaborative project in which I worked with another fellow student. We created the WPA style guide in order to give the WPA journal editorial team a reference for format, punctuation, style, grammar, and documentation that is specific to the WPA journal. I helped to design the manual's colors, typeface, and font. Also, I helped to write and edit the style guide.

The editorial team which includes the editors and assistant editors of the WPA journal. 

My teammate and I first met with the client, Dr. Barbara L'Eplattenier, a professor in the Rhetoric and Writing Department and an editor of the WPA journal. After Dr. Barbara L'Eplattenier discussed with us what she needed, we met once a week to write, edit, and design the style guide. Also, as part of the class requirement, fellow students edited the first draft of the style guide.

The challenge was meeting the deadlines and making sure that we followed through with the client's need without tampering with the style of the original style guide that the Dr. L'Eplattenier gave us as a starting point.

I used 4 design principles to design the WPA manual: proximity, alignment, repetition, and contrast. I aligned the text and images and put them in close proximity with each other so that it creates a visual connection. For repetition, which ties together elements on a page, I used the color blue in contrast with the white texture of the background pages. Also, I used no more than 2 different typefaces and used the original logo of the WPA administration website/booklets for consistency. Furthermore, I learned about the process of editing the WPA journal and multipass editing. Multipass editing involves reviewing a piece of writing multiple times for error patterns. Multipass editing is important because it reduces punctuation and grammatical errors.