Audience:

Middle income families in the Baltimore area with elementary aged children

Design Problem:

The Maryland Book Bank (MBB) uses direct mail to reach locals in their area to inform them of the need for books for children in pre-K through 3rd grade. This printed project was made for a class assignment.

Why it works:

The MBB mission being to cultivate literacy in youth to increase their future chance of graduating high school and becoming successful members of society, a direct mail is effective when it is designed to communicate to a desired audience. Middle income families can associate empathy for lower income families without access to books, especially when the group in need is children. The mailer is an empty bookshelf that becomes full of books when opened and speaks directly to the organization’s cause visually. The Ravens character is part of their Bookmobile program branding and is recognizable to the audience being from the Baltimore area. In addition, there is a call to action asked of the recipient to donate money to further their cause or pay for memberships for local teachers and organizations with information about their location with parking directions included. It is cost efficient for the organization and is designed to be kept by the recipient with an included bookmark and a standing gatefold design that contains information to be continually referenced by someones bookshelf or mail stack.

Skills Applied:

Adobe Illustrator and InDesign

Execution:

The mailer included digital drawing in Illustrator and incorporated logos and text formatting with InDesign to create files intended for print using crops, bleeds, fold lines, and die cut lines. The whole package includes a carrier envelope, the gatefold pop up mailer, a donation card with perforated bookmark attached and a reply envelope of I which I designed the concept and content for. I had permission by MBB to use their logo and website content.