I grew up public school.
That turned out to be the most useful thing I brought to this project.

What I brought to this project: concept development, materials audit, admissions team research, art direction, design from concept to finish, student illustration program, campus map concept.

There's a particular kind of document that gets made by people who already belong somewhere. It's polished. It's complete. It answers every question — for someone who already knows which questions to ask. Gilman's admissions materials were beautiful. They were also, in that specific way, inside baseball.

I grew up public school. I had no frame of reference for this world when I arrived at Gilman, which turned out to be exactly the right qualification for this project.

the audit

Before anything gets designed, I need to see what already exists. Not in a spreadsheet — on a table. Every printed piece laid out flat, in the order a parent would encounter it, at each touchpoint across the admissions process. What were we handing out, where, and why? What was redundant? What was missing? What was a reaction to a moment rather than part of a plan?

What we found was a folder system with tiered individual pages and a constellation of additional pieces that had accumulated over time — each one reasonable in isolation, collectively exhausting. Parents visiting Gilman were simultaneously visiting three or four other schools, collecting similar packets at each stop. Ours wasn't worse than the others. It was indistinguishable from them. And in some cases, parents were receiving the same information multiple times across different events without realizing it, because we hadn't mapped the full journey ourselves.

I sat in on meetings with the admissions team alongside our copywriter and marketing VP — structured but genuinely collaborative. I came as the designer, but I was listening for something more specific than copy points. I wanted to understand what parents were actually confused about, what questions kept surfacing, and who they were imagining when they pictured a Gilman student. That last part turned out to matter most.

Admissions was actively working to broaden the story Gilman told about itself. Not just the legacy families, not just the students who'd been on this path since kindergarten — but the everyday kid from a public school background who might never have considered that a place like this was meant for him too. That was the brief underneath the brief.

the concept

I wanted someone to pick this up and feel like they already belonged at Gilman before they'd set foot on campus. Not sold to. Not processed. Already there.

The answer wasn't more information. It was a different kind of information — told through photos, through student illustrations, through the actual words of the kids who live this experience. We replaced the insider's view with an experiential one. Less "here is what Gilman offers." More "here is what it feels like to be here."

The underlying concept I kept returning to was foundations and building — the idea that Gilman gives students something structural, something they carry. That led to the centerpiece of the piece: a campus map. Not a wayfinding tool. An emotional one. Not just where the buildings are, but where the memories get made. The dining hall where someone found his people. The field where something clicked. A map that says: this place will become yours.

The student illustrations were a deliberate extension of that thinking. Gilman students do remarkable things — we highlight that constantly. But having them contribute their own artwork to a document that represents the school to the outside world is different. It says we trust you. It says your voice is part of this place before you've even proven anything.

The physical object was designed to feel aspirational without feeling intimidating. Uncoated stock for warmth and approachability, with a coated pullout that earns its moment. Something you'd want to keep on your coffee table rather than file away or recycle.

what changed

A folder with accumulated pieces became a single cohesive book. Scattered became intentional. Inside baseball became a door left open.

The parents and students who pick this up — especially the ones who never imagined a place like Gilman was for them — should find their questions answered and themselves reflected back. Factual and belonging at the same time.

That's a harder thing to design than it sounds.