Admissions recruitment pieces

At Messiah College, we create a full package of student recruitment pieces. We begin with 2 introductory mailers sent to high school sophomores, 5 mailers sent to high school juniors, 3 mailers sent to high school seniors and then the prospective student receives the admissions magazine and the viewbook. This package was originally designed through an outside agency but each year our talented team of designers and I look at each piece to evaluate it's current effectiveness and update design, text and photos. Yearly, postal regulations have changed so the folds and sizes of the mailers have changed accordingly. This year, we took a closer look at the viewbook and made significant changes to the use of paper, style of infographics and quote boxes.

Through each of these pieces we look to tell a sample of the Messiah College experience. As a family of pieces, each one tells a story of a different aspect of life at Messiah College.

This gallery is just a sampling of the core pieces we use to connect to prospective students. We also create many pieces that are sent in between these to keep prospective students informed and up to date about events and when to visit.

Viewbook, Introductory mailers, junior mailers and senior mailers.

2015-16 viewbook. Our viewbook has a cover with a notched design that slides open. Students have said it "felt special" like they were "opening a gift." We love that it is received that way and have retained that design for 5 years. This year we updated the cover paper from Neenah desert storm, a lightly textured tan paper, to Neenah Classic Crest Patriot Blue which more closely reflects our official college color of Navy Blue or PMS 295. The cover has been printed with only white ink. It didn't stand out enough on the light tan paper so we opted for a white foil stamp this year and have been pleased with how well it stands out. We also upgraded the interior paper to a brighter white Euro Art 100 lb text.

Sample page from the viewbook. The refresh done in 2015 was to make the viewbook more skimmable. This example shows updated quote boxes to emphasize the part of the quote that is the main subject and infographics that use icons to help the information stand out.

Sample page from the viewbook. The refresh done in 2015 was to make the viewbook more skimmable. This was previously a 2-column body of copy. The designers and I reworked this to make each distinctive stand out on it's own with photos, icons, URLs and bold, colored text to make ideas stand out.