Design Kompany art directed the redesign of Seattle Central Community College’s student handbook for the 2006-2007 school year. Our summer graphic design intern Alex Hage designed this cover art.
Step by step
We wanted to share with you how we worked through the redesign process.
Just like on brand identity design projects, we start by listening for key pieces of information to find out what the final product needs to be.
For the handbook, students told Design Kompany they wanted a book that would do more than just communicate “the fine print.”
They wanted a campus map, for example, and helpful details on when classes start and end.
They wanted it to be attractive. Easy to use.
Staying in budget, on time
We got a clear figure for the print budget and fixed a date for completion. That helped us outline a plan to keep the new handbook on both tracks.
Keeping the new handbook light was a priority, so we designed for under 100 pages.
Design Kompany created a template, cover and dividers. The Seattle Central students and staff worked on the copy and production.
Inspiration
It so happened that a couple of issues of a literary and arts zine were hanging around our conference room during one of our early meetings at Design Kompany with Seattle Central’s production team.
DK’s creative director Dipika Kohli had picked up the Portland zine 2GirlzQuarterly at a book fair called Wordstock.
That’s what inspired the binder clips.
Related links
Just for fun, Design Kompany also did some page layout for Seattle Central’s school newspaper, The City Collegian.
The year we were part of it, the paper won an award.
Working on layout for this newspaper eventually led to a completely different and new commission: a total rebrand and redesign for the Seattle community newspaper Northwest Asian Weekly.
