Loyola
Loyola University of Maryland | Newsprint Part 1
Newsprint is an immersive, temporary material. It has a short lifetime and is intentionally imperfect. This is what we love about it, and why, when we were asked to create a search piece for Loyola University Maryland, we chose newsprint. We wanted to use a material that was as immediate, honest, and unvarnished as the messaging contained in its pages.
The task was to create a mailer for Loyola that was aimed at high school Sophomores and Juniors—
a time when many prospective students are feeling overwhelming emotions (both good and bad) about college. So instead of going down a tried and trite path full of generic campus photography and preemptive university information, we decided to instead tackle the immediate emotions that students feel at that particular moment in their lives: excitement, uncertainty, nervousness, and above all, possibility. We wanted to create something that was welcoming, immersive, and relatable—a bit of relevant life advice, rather than marketing jargon.
We explained the idea to Loyola as a piece that’s about the now—one that doesn’t immediately refer to Loyola, but instead reflects the school’s ideals and the type of attention and life skills that students can garner from their time on the Evergreen campus. Loyola was so excited by the idea that they encouraged us to make a double-edition piece that would be mailed out in two waves over a month-long period.
The last spread contained a series of blank areas that needed to be filled in to reveal a message. We hid little windows of the missing sky pieces with an accompanying letter from the alphabet. They were hidden pretty well and we knew only the most curious who connected with the piece would bother to find the secret message, but if they did they revealed this: Don’t worry about the finish. And were encouraged to just: BEGIN.
It was really exciting to have the opportunity to work on a piece that pushed the boundaries of what a piece of university branding can be—going so far as to have the first volume appear without any logo or mention of Loyola whatsoever, besides a discrete seal on the back cover. The first volume focuses on the types of questions and uncertainties that high school students might be dealing with, and encourages them to embrace their facets, take advantage of their ability to try many things, and to focus on what makes them happy.
This first and second volume went on to win Best of Show in the HOW magazine 2011 International Design Awards competition with an accompanying article you can read here.
Agency: 160over90
Creative Direction: Dan Shepelavy
Concept: Kelly Dorsey, Anna Hartley
Design: Kelly Dorsey
Photography: Daniel Bedell
Photo Art Direction: Kelly Dorsey