I’m posting my latest activity for all of us kids big and small who are stuck at home. Today’s activity: Designing a brochure for an imagined world.
The truth is that when I was a kid, we didn’t go on a lot of vacations. A big reason for this is that I grew up on a family farm and the summer—when most people go on vacation—was the time for us to work really hard and earn the income that would sustain us for the rest of the year.
So, most of my “vacations” were taken through books—either by reading them or writing them.
Of course, reading or writing are great ways to escape NOW, during our world COVID-19 pandemic, but I want to provide a bit more focus with this activity. Who knows, it might turn into a book—or, if you have already written a book or story, this project can be a fun way to view your “world” from a different perspective.
I’ve delivered this activity several times with students at schools or programs I’ve worked at in Canada and Korea, and it’s proven to be a lot of fun.
The imaginary travel brochure
What you will need:
- Paper — you can use either blank paper or use the template I’ve provided
- Drawing supplies: Pens, pencils, colored pencils, fine-liners, markers—your preference!
- Optional: glue
The goal of this project is to make a three-panel tri-fold brochure, which you can do simply by folding a letter-sized piece of paper into thirds. That gives you three panels on one side of the brochure, and three on the other. You can do your brochure double-sided on a single sheet of paper, or if you are worried about your paper being too thin, and markers bleeding through, then just do this project on two separate pieces of paper, which you could always glue together afterward.
There are no real rules to how to fill out the pages, but I recommend:
SIDE 1
- Panel 1 (the cover): Cover art and title, such as “Come Visit . . .”
- Panel 6 (the back cover): Contact information.
- Panel 5: More information about the world the brochure is advertising—I like doing a “did you know” section here.
SIDE 2
- Panel 2: General information about the world, showcasing key points of interest.
- Panels 3&4: A bigger piece of artwork, such as a landscape of the world, or a map.
Of course, I highly recommend brainstorming the content and working on some rough copies before worrying about the final version. You can use your own blank paper folded into thirds, though if you want some content blocks to work with, then you can download my template HERE. You can also download and print out the template with the instructions, just in case you want something sitting in front of you to look at.
If you do print out my template double-sided, you may have to experiment with how your printer works—certain devices seem to flip the second page the wrong way!
Come visit these imaginary worlds:
I always have this rule in my creativity classes: If I ask YOU to do it, then I’ve also done it. So, here are two brochures that I’ve made! One is for The Land of Een, which is featured in my Kendra Kandlestar book series. The other is for the multiverse that appears in my Zoone series–because Zoone features so many different worlds, I decided to do that brochure a little bit differently!
Finally, here are some brochure examples done by past students.
Foodlandia:
Rainbow Island:
Land of Cute:
Ocean Kingdom:
I’d love to see what kids come up with! If you post them on social media, please hashtag #imaginarytravelbrochure and tag me (I’m @leefodi on Instagram and twitter).
In the meantime, stay safe, stay well, and stay tuned . . .
Between the Cracks of Here and There 