Cover Art for Graduation Program

Manhattan Beach Middle School

We are looking for innovative and fun cover art for the (printed) program for our 8th grade promotion ceremony. The theme of the promotion is Dr. Suess's "Oh, the places you'll go!" Read the poem to connect with the emotion of this project - it's very inspirational. I am responsible for producing the program. I have spent a lot of time on stock photo sites to gain inspiration and find ideas but it's not working. I need your creativity to make this truly memorable for the students and their families. The cover art is pivotal for all that we do to make the ceremony and party special for the children.

The challenge lies in creating something that will be appealing to students, parents and teachers/administrators. However, it is most important that the students love it. We live in a southern California beach community. The kids are pretty sophisticated, lots of over achievers. In other words, they know what they like. They won't like anything childish. We're all pretty tired of the beach theme being incorporated in these types of things.

Traditionally the brochure has been 7" (W) x 8.5" (H). I am open to an alternative size if your design warrants it. Keep in mind we are on a limited budget and can not pay for die cuts or other creative features that will be costly to print.

I will need a file appropriate for printing (i.e. EPS) and a PDF.

The colors for this ceremony are a deep red (ex. RGB 165/0/35), black and silver (prefer metallic). These colors should be used almost exclusively in the cover art. I am open to having additional colors incorporated if you feel that it lends to the overall feel of the design. You can alter the deep red to suite your design. Feel free to use the colors at will - for example any of the colors can be used as the background.

I have attached one abstract design that I came up with. I don't want this to limit your creativity but I think this conveys the emotion of the theme. In my design the theme "Oh, the places you'll go" is supposed to flow with the wave but when I did this in Quark the final didn't save properly as a pdf so for purposes of sharing I recreated it in Publisher.

The following must appear on the cover:
1. The theme "Oh, the places you'll go!"
2. Manhattan Beach Middle School
Promotion Ceremony
June 22, 2010

Feel free to use other positive lines from the poem in the cover art.