College Letter Design: Part Three

This is the last post in my college letter design series.  The first of the last college letters we're going to take a peek at today is from...

Skidmore College
I just love the outside of this college's letter.  It's simple, it grabs your attention, and it's cool.

The use of white space is excellent, the color variation in the text provides need visual interest, and the question format, like I've talked about before, is a great way to get the viewer to open up the flap and see what the rest of the note has to say.  Another upside to this cover is that it still looks good even when there have been smudges and smears due to being mailed and being stored.

However, I was rather disappointed with the rest of the design for this letter.  In contrast to the nearly genius cover, the inside is...well, rather ordinary.

There's nothing exactly bad about the design (except maybe the black cartoons at the top and on the unseen side), but it's just very average.  The photo is mediocre, with a lack of crisp focus and a wildly blown out sky.  The font choice, even though it's the same as the font on the cover, seems less stunning in this context.  Also, the balance of color in the multi-colored text is horrible.  There's much more lime green than any other color, and even the other three colors don't liven up the same amount of letters.  While the overall design of Skidmore's brochure is far superior to many others, I think it would have been so much better if they had retained some of the design of the front when making the inside.

Now, for the final college letter, we will take a look at...

Northwestern University

The envelope for this letter rocks.  Here it is.

This is one of the most interesting envelopes I've seen.  I love the variety of colors, but also the way the colors don't seem overpowering.  And a good envelope, for me at least, makes me want to see what's inside.  And what's inside this envelope is a little booklet with a cover like this.

I honestly think the cover of the booklet is very boring.  It also can't seem to decide if it wants to be like the envelope or different from the envelope.  If the designer had chosen one or the other, I think it would've been stronger.  But the inside pages completely make up for it.

The use of white space is excellent, and I really like the fun yet slightly muted colors.  The contrast between font styles and colors is also well done.  I like the way the fonts complement each other, even though one is serif and one is sans serif.  The continuity throughout the whole book is also great.  The other pages compliment, but don't exactly copy each other.

The photographs on the inside pages are also good ones, which is very important since they're standing alone on a full page.  I really like the design of this booklet - Northwestern did a good job.

And that concludes the series.  Thanks for reading!