back cover

Tarumizu High School’s prospectus came back from the printer this week. Three A4 folded sheets, hand bound by awesome students in the Life Design Course with elastic bands in a variety of colors. The binding was left loose purposefully to allow people to separate individual spreads for use in promoting the courses to junior high students with specific interests.

As many High Schools in rural Japan offer trade-specific courses alongside an academic (or general, college bound) course, it’s often necessary to speak directly towards specific areas of interest to attract students to your program. Students here end up making big decisions about fields of study very early in their course of education, and our guide makes an effort to speak to them honestly about the possibilities both courses at Tarumizu High can offer.

front cover (right to left read)

principal's message and general course information

design course information and school event calendar

club activities

event calendar continued and design course student testimonials

general course student testimonials, class leader message, archery club news, and university admittance history

back cover

brochure spreads are designed to be removed for photocopying or use as secondary promotion within junior high schools

each page has school contact information if pages are separated for copies, use as posters, etc.

event calendar

design course spread

So far everyone has reacted positively toward the book. I imagine projects like this tend to be viewed as necessary chores instead of a valuable promotion tools. I think at the least it can be an interesting way to get people working together school wide, regardless of the design. I suppose the real value will show itself during next year’s entrance exam applicants… For me personally, I hope someone at the Prefectural office gets a copy and realizes there is value in keeping Tarumizu High School open, instead of shutting it’s doors and relegating it to a poorly staffed retirement home or ambiguously named “clinic”.

This was a great project for me and definitely helped build new bonds with my teachers and students whom I usually only speak with in passing. Thankfully I had a lot of the photographs already in the “archive” of sorts, but the ones we shot came out well too. Thumbs up.

Tags: brochure, design, photo, project, school life, school project, school prospectus, tarumizu