How did we raise the bar in school prospectus design?

Challenge
Notting Hill & Ealing High School for Girls (NHEHS) are part of the Girls’ Day School Trust (GDST), consistently achieving academic excellence. We won a pitch to design their marketing material, including their Junior and Senior School Prospectuses, and their Sixth Form Prospectus.

NHEHS wanted to communicate their warm, friendly and supportive atmosphere. Our approach translated this need into creating publications with a strong bias of photography and minimal copy. Our design approach involved the use of textured paper, foil blocking, metallic inks, contrasting paper stocks and a bespoke folder design. The prospectuses were keepsakes for parents and potential pupils, reinforcing their open day experiences at the school and reflecting the value the school places on its students.

Solution
Time-critical information was placed into the back of each prospectus as an insert, giving the prospectuses a longer shelf life and consequently making them cost-effective to produce annually. The literature reinforces the message of a quality education in what is a lively and fun learning environment.

The sixth form prospectus design appealed to girls in their late-teens, styling the cover as a magazine and giving the inner pages the feel of a higher education prospectus.

Result
The prospectuses have been well received by prospective parents and students and have been a very successful marketing tool for NHEHS ensuring they remained competitive with a unique proposition amongst schools in the immediate area.

All schools describe themselves as “different” despite the fact that we then often go on to say the same things about ourselves. Tim and his team have helped us in the process of communicating the things that really do define NHEHS and contribute to its success. Working with Ball Design & Branding is a real exercise in partnership. They are generous and intelligent collaborators who have invested in getting to know us. They put us at the centre of each project, using their combination of design vision and skills to deliver pieces that we immediately recognise as encapsulating the NHEHS brand and its values. They have designed and produced beautiful prospectuses for us to support pupil recruitment at 4+, 11+ and 16+ and have also brought their flair and meticulous eye for detail to the design for our advertising campaigns and events promotion.

Kate Naameh

Head of Marketing

Client Sector

What was involved in this project?