digital spaces for education

Preparing Students to Learn More

Learn More Indiana, a subset of the Indiana Commission for Higher Education, provides an annual magazine to all Hoosier students around continuing education after high school. There are four magazines under the ‘Learn More Indiana’ (LMI) title for different grade groups.

In past years, this publication had been physically printed and sent to students across the state. In 2020, LMI aimed to gain reach by providing digital access as well as print. Due to short turnaround times, the digital options were simply PDF copies of the magazines hosted online. For the 2021-2022 school year, the Commission and LMI wanted to find a solution for a dynamic virtual magazine that worked in conjunction with the print magazine. Schools this year would be provided both access to the digital publication and classroom copies of the printed magazine.

Informative and Interactive

LMI chose Matchbook as their 2021 partner for this multi-faceted project. Matchbook created the content, design, and layout for all four print magazines, then translated these print publications to online magazines on a reusable platform. This project required work and expertise across multiple disciplines. Matchbook decided to lead with the content, allowing it to inform the physical and digital magazines. While the core pillars of ‘College, Career, and Cost’ remained a constant for messaging throughout all four grade bands, the content, activities, and delivery needed to change to meet the needs of each age group.

All four magazines were full of engaging and interactive content and activities tailored to their grade level. This included videos from Hoosier colleges and universities, different types of careers available within different industries, and ways to help pay for education and training beyond high school, including Indiana’s 21st Century Scholars Program. There were also articles on mental health, creating positive habits, and resources for parents and caregivers.

A More Powerful Way to Connect

Once content was created and approved for all four age groups, the design process for the physical magazines began. The printed magazines and the subsequent digital publications centered around a playful design full of stickers and vibrant colors to keep the pieces upbeat and relevant to students. Our team was mindful in creating an overall design with a cohesive theme across all four magazines while providing a distinct, grade-level appropriate look for each group. This was achieved through a shared color palette where different colors within the palette were the hero colors of each magazine.

Bringing the Magazine Online

Creating the digital magazine presented challenges, as LMI had nothad an interactive magazine before. Matchbook was able to create a solution that was useful to students while remaining evergreen so it does not need to be rebuilt every year. Given Indiana State budget guidelines, this solution not only saves money, but it puts LMI on track to remove printing costs from its budgets ahead of schedule. As a partner, Matchbook helped take these magazines from an underutilized print tool to a platform that connected to kids wherever they were. This digital publication keeps the conversation about continuing education beyond high school relevant and accessible to Indiana students. The digital stand-alone website offers each grade band its own distinct section, with a single platform for administrators. A section for parents houses resources both on career-related content for adults, as well as scholarship and other continuing education information for their children. Overall, LMI now has a more interactive, cohesive experience between the print and digital components, offering a better resource to parents and students.