    Project name
First-Year Student Residence Guide 2002
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Background and goals
Housing and Student Life Programs (SLP) approached PSB in December 2001 with the task of creating a new First-Year Student Residence Guide. The existing guide needed to be overhauled in response to a new MIT mandate requiring that all incoming freshmen live on campus in one of sixteen different living groups—eleven residence halls and five cultural houses. All references in the existing guide to fraternity, sorority, and independent living group (FSILG) options, therefore, had to be eliminated.
The goals for the new guide included:
- Providing easy-to-follow steps for freshmen making their housing selections.
- Conveying the personality of each residence hall by featuring photos and descriptions.
- Illustrating, with fresh photography, students participating in residence hall activities.
- Presenting an energetic design that would appeal to a student audience.
- Maintaining a student perspective by allowing them to design one page of each two-page spread and create a CD-ROM as an expression of their MIT experience.
The PSB role
The PSB advisor showed the client the portfolios of several designers and photographers who could bring new energy to the existing version. The client selected one of the designers, and PSB drafted and issued a proposal request to two of the photographers. The client requested additional photo samples showing a combination of people and buildings to get a better sense of how each of the photographers might depict residence hall life. PSB also obtained print estimates and researched production options for the CD.
Results
The designer changed the orientation of the guide to an oblong format to optimize the presentation of information on each two-page spread and worked closely with the client to develop layouts for the guide's instruction pages. In collaboration with the student teams from each of the residence halls, the designer selected the fonts and images that best expressed the personality and culture of each hall. The student-developed CD was inserted inside the guide's front cover using a self-adhesive rubber button recommended by the printer. The photography for the project was provided digitally to enable easy archiving and reuse in future publications and websites. The revamped guide was included in freshman acceptance packages in April 2002, and the new design will be maintained and updated over the next few years using fresh color palettes and images.
Vendor team
Design: Ink Design
Photography: Betsy Cullen Photography
Printing: Kirkwood Printing
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