The Big Book of Healthy Schools

Design of a large format book to showcase health and well-being in schools

A design project working with Bristol City Council to create a large format book full of photos and illustrations drawn by school children. It's mission was to showcase the broad extent and value of the Healthy Schools initiative. It needed to be bright, cheerful and appeal to children and parents as well as other schools not yet part of the scheme.

A scrapbook look and feel were generally agreed on as the right approach - I scanned each drawing, and then cut out photos and illustrations as needed, words were gathered, backgrounds were sourced, and everything was arranged with infinite care and attention to detail on the page.

When it was finally complete (and I was very pleased that Emtone were engaged to print it – on an uncoated paper they really excel!) the Big Book really lived up to expectations. Everyone was over the moon and we received some great feedback and comments.

"It is not often that the finished product, for a commissioned piece of work, totally exceeds all expectations as significantly as the Big Book produced by TinCat Design. The finished result is a stunning piece of work and I am delighted with it.

The creation of this book was a partnership but I have to praise the considerable design skills of Ruth Wellman from TinCat Design who worked on the design and layout. This was by anyone’s standards a difficult piece of work.

Ruth invested important time gaining a full understanding of our requirements to enable her to interpret our needs successfully and then brought her own originality to the creative task of marrying together a variety of visual images into a balanced page spread. Ruth also demonstrated enormous patience as we agonised over decisions and changed our minds!!!!

The Big Book has been sent out all over Bristol and has had praised showered on it – you can’t help but be impressed. It stands as a clear testament to the quality of the work of TinCat Design."

Julie Coulthard,
Bristol Healthy Schools Programme Manager