Emory University
Challenge
His Holiness the Dalai Lama’s biggest dream is to provide education to secular society on how to be compassionate, ethical and kind, so that the world would be a better place. His partnership with Emory University, forming The Center for Contemplative Science and Compassion-Based Ethics, led to the creation of a set of curriculum for school-aged children around the world. Emory University needed a brand that would appeal and be sensitive to all cultures and religions. The books also needed to be designed so that they could be easily translated into other languages and printed cost-effectively.
Solution
Three curriculum books were designed for different school-aged groups plus a companion for the instructors on how to teach these skills. Each book has a dominant color to differentiate them and the illustration shows the relationships children have with one another and with the outside world. The illustration of the children are a silhouette to be as neutral as possible for showing ethnicity, culture and gender. The inside pages are designed with two colours to allow for printing most cost-effectively.
Result
The final result was met with positivity as the colors were appealing and light. Educators from various parts of the world connected with the books and were eager to use them in the classroom. The books were translated into 12 languages for the April 2019 launch with His Holiness the Dalai Lama in New Delhi, India.
“The launch for our project with His Holiness the Dalai Lama in New Delhi was tight and ambitious. We were so happy to have Estella on our team. The curriculum was a large complex project with many contributors, so there were many changes that had to be made along the way, both for the creative and the content. Estella was able listen, address all our concerns, create solutions that pleased our large team, guide us through the process and handle everything seamlessly to make an incredibly tight deadline. Near the end, she created covers, managed and provided input on the design for 12 languages. She was able to spearhead and pull everything together for the final push – catching and resolving problems along the way with various translators and coordinating with our printer in India to make our deadline. In the end, the launch was a huge success. Everyone is happy with the product and we have received many compliments on how beautiful the books are – and they have remained high in demand since publication! We look forward to working with Estella again.”
Lindy Settevendemie | Emory University