Educational Booklets: How School Yard Rap Inspires Students with Print

On a mission to better the educational experience for students of all kinds, Brown flips the script on what a curriculum can be. As CEO of School Yard Rap, Brown blends educational content with music and professional development to give minority narratives and cultures the spotlight.

“Our purpose is to educate all students about the accomplishments and contributions of people they don’t hear about in school,” said Brown. “We believe when students see themselves in positions of success and intellectual, economic and scientific equality, they perform better and aspire to be more.”

To bolster the curriculum, Brown provides educational workbooks custom printed with Smartpress. His study guides and coloring books feature minority figures throughout history and across industries who’ve made their mark and show students just how far they can go.

“We believe when students see people of other races in the spheres of excellence and equality, they grow up more empathetic and resistant to racist rhetoric,” said Brown. “I love the joy on students’ faces when they hear about someone new and amazing, and that person looks like them!”

Though they’re both educational booklets, Brown’s study guides and coloring books needed to look and feel different – like any marketing asset, the intent dictates the design. He turned to perfect bound booklets for his study guides, where the pages line up exactly with the cover and fold into a seamless square spine that’s polished and clean.

“The perfect bound look feels the most professional and like a study guide,” said Brown. “We toyed with the saddle stitch and spiral, but in the end, the perfect bound has the high quality finish for the amount of pages we intended.”

With paper stock options, UV coatings and even variable data, our custom printing services allow you to easily make your own study guide or personalized lookbooks, portfolios and graphic novels. And that page count Brown referred to? Perfect bound books are ideal for publications with 46 pages or more and can be up to 2” thick.

And while his study guides are bursting with vibrant, energizing color, Brown’s educational coloring books let students fill in the blanks with black and white illustrations on the interior pages (at Smartpress, you can print with either ink option).

With pages that are laid together and stapled through the fold line, saddle stitch booklets provided the classic look and feel for coloring book printing: “Saddle stitch was the most economical fit for this coloring book design and the amount of pages.”

Hint: Brown printed tens of thousands of custom booklets, but did you know we also specialize in short runs? You can print as few as 10 or as many as 50,000 at one time.

What are your creative priorities when designing print for your organization?
“The priority is the lesson we teach and the person we’re highlighting. After we’ve found success in researching and digesting that information to be understood by younger students, then our designer, Kid Tako, uses his brilliant mind to make the images of these people stand out in a creative way.”

What’s your purpose for creating the School Yard Rap Study Guides?
“The goal is to merge the music with the message, the education with the entertainment! Every song lyric is educational, and the people or concepts we teach about in those songs have to be highlighted. By being purposeful in picking 8-10 people or topics in the song, we extend the lesson from the music.”

Was there a specific design vision for your custom coloring books?
“Absolutely! We do school assemblies using our music, and we felt it very important for students to have a takeaway that didn’t cut too much into our bottom line. The idea of coloring books fits right in with the elementary age group, but we also added factual information so they can read and learn while coloring.”

How has custom printing helped you achieve your strategic goals?
“Printing books helps our goals because it allows students to take something away from our shows. We do large concerts as field trip opportunities, and for every ticket, we add a corresponding book. This has allowed the ticket price to be seen as a value and also gives students a resource to learn more after they leave our show.”

What feedback have you received from your students/community about your printed materials?
“Students and teachers love the books, especially the fact that we have multiple sets highlighting different people. The quality of the books has garnered a positive response every time!”

What impresses you most about the final products and online printing with Smartpress?
“Your team’s communication has been a valuable asset. The agent in charge of my orders has been responsive and communicative through the entire process. Even when things finished, she reached out more than once to check in on how the books were received.”