Cohousing-L Mailing List: Cohousing Brochure Design Process

[Alice Alexander (alicecohous]

*We have appreciated all the good comments on the Cohousing Brochure. In
particular, Raines, many thanks for your inquiries and good feedback, and
inspiring me to fill in the details. We are grateful that you care and take
the time with great suggestions! - The brochure was designed by a volunteer
we engaged via Catchafire www.catchafire.org <http://www.catchafire.org/>,
based in NY City: Amanda Martis
(http://cargocollective.com/amandamartis/About-Amanda-Martis
<http://cargocollective.com/amandamartis/About-Amanda-Martis>). This was a
good experience for us! - Our goal was to create a brochure for tabling and
leave behind opportunities (that can be printed from our website) where a
tangible print product is helpful, that profiles cohousing, and briefly
introduces Coho/US, with the aim of attracting folks to cohousing, and
connecting/ engaging with Coho/US.- We encourage communities who would like
to use this brochure to create a bookmark-sized insert with their own story
and contact info. We did not intend for this brochure to be editable.- We
can provide a smaller data file, but it won't print at the same quality. We
specifically requested the designer to provide the high def pdf.- We intend
to keep this brochure up to date, and we should add a revision date, good
idea.- An address still remains important to some, especially those for
whom a printed out collateral piece is appreciated. We do intend to add our
phone #.- Appreciating the need to keep a brochure simple in order to
convey key points, and to entice people to learn more, we weren’t able to
go into depth on the myriad aspects of cohousing.- “Aging in place” is a
term well understood by the general population, who is our main audience
for this generic brochure, although you are correct, “Aging in Community”
connotes more meaning in our cohousing world. We will consider modifying as
we revise, since we can be helpful in promoting this better term.- You are
correct that the brochure does not describe in any detail the resident
design participation, nor specify home ownership. There’s a lot we don’t
describe! Given some folks come to cohousing with an already-designed
community, some involve rentals, and the fact that our definition of
cohousing is evolving, and broadening, we by design did not want to go into
detail here with assumptions about a development process or ownership
model.  - I had not thought about the need for a website URL on the front
cover! I am not concerned, given most folks don’t have a brochure in hand
when browsing, and a search for “cohousing” results in cohousing.org
<http://cohousing.org>.Again, many thanks!*--
Alice Alexander
Executive Director
www.cohousing.org <http://www.cohous.org>
[image: The Cohousing Association]