Students and teachers at Meridian rely on Schoology for course assignment resources, and general updates of the going-ons at school. With so many people posting and submitting things on Schoology, it can be hard for users to easily find important school updates and. Despite these difficulties, one individual has come up with a straightforward and aesthetically pleasing method of reducing e confusion. 

Vavaria Dee Dee Etheredge started her working relationship with  FCCPS working at Oak Street Daycare, around the time current Meridian students were in elementary school. Eventually, she moved on from the daycare and now helms the front desk on the third floor counseling office.

“Whenever someone needs help, I like to be able to help them or find the person who can help them,” Etheredge said.

When asked what her favorite part of her job is here at Meridian, Etheredge responded, “The people. I really enjoy the staff here, it’s a really, really great group. And I get to see students that I haven’t seen since they were in like, 4th or 5th grade.” 

One of Etheredge’s most recent contributions to helping others at Meridian is compiling important information for students and staff, all in one beautifully-packaged Schoology post, per the Meridian administration’s request. 

After Etheredge took over the additional duties of creating mass daily Schoology posts, she noticed a lack of student body interaction with the updates, and questions regarding information that could be found on Schoology.

“Although I was posting the announcements, I was still getting a lot of questions about them. So I was like ‘nobody is reading them, like how do I catch their eye?’ So that’s when I like, researched some sites and you know, learned a few things and was like ‘okay’ and made a little infographic over Winter Break.”

Although not having any previous experience in digital design or art, Etheredge researched and found the online design website, Canva. Completely self-taught and with the help of templates, she started designing daily infographics, containing the same information that was previously in the daily Schoology posts, just formatted and designed to a higher aesthetic caliber.

Etheredge likes to put in the time to make each one of them look nice. According to her, she allocates a good amount of work to each infographic, while enjoying the time it takes to create each one. 

“I would say, the infographic itself, like putting all the pictures in, maybe about 35 minutes, but finding the info that should go in [to the infographic], finding the links, sometimes I have to create a flier for the link, because things don’t match up. All together I would say I do, 30 minutes the day before and 30 minutes to 40 minutes the day of. So I guess an hour and ten, fifteen minutes.” 

 After doing more than three month’s worth of infographics, one might think there aren’t any more designs or concepts to use. However, Etheredge’s impressive creativity provides her with a seemingly endless stream of ideas.

“Sometimes I’ll just see an element. Like a picture or something or a graphic and I’ll make the whole thing based on [around that element],” Etheredge remarked. “Other times I’ll see templates and think ‘Oh those colors are nice’ — or like holidays, something like that. But a lot of the time I see an element and I like the pictures or the color scheme and I’m like “I gotta, like, find a way to build around it.” 

Etheredge takes pride in all her designs, but she definitely has a few favorite infographic designs. Most of which are holiday based designs. Some of her favorites are: 

A cheery Winter holiday design with elves and ornaments.

The Winter Formal design, based around the concept of gold and glitter.

A design for Black History Month and the spirit day: “Hat Day” that features a Black man and Black woman facing each other as the central point of the design. 

“It had to be the holiday ones, just because it felt good to make, like the cheery ones– I just love that feeling.” Etheredge said, on the topic of her favorite designs. 

When asked what she would say to other beginners hoping to get into the graphic design game, Etheredge said “I would start with Canva –it’s a really great site.” Canva is free to use for beginners and is linked at the end of this article. 

“And I would just research, it’s one of those things that I think are underrated, is going on, on your own and researching –because Canva is great for me, but it might not be great for other people.” 

Don’t forget to look out for the daily infographics on Schoology, posted by Ms.Etheredge. Going to create lengths, they’re here to remind students and staff of upcoming events and important general information.