discordian colouring book as advertising

[shadowfurry23]

Original Message:

From: ShadowFist23
Date: Sat, 29 Nov 2008 16:46:37 -0500
To: laramie
Subject: discordian colouring book as advertising

Hullo Laramie,

I've been rediscovering Discordianism lately, and happened again
across your lovely Discordian Colouring Book. I had always meant to
tell you how awesome it is, so here I am!  They're wonderful images,
and it would be nice to get more people seeing them.

I had been thinking about pamphleting or something, and it occurred
to me that individual pages of your book with some text added above
and below (e.g. learn more about discordianism here [link to the PD]
and see more from the artist here [link to your website]) might have
the dual purpose of turning more people on to Discordianism and
potentially netting you some referrals and hopefully some sales!  It
might also be fun to make sure the pages were numbered and include the
text "collect the whole set" somewhere in there too.  Also a copyright
notice, for your protection.

Handily the pages hosted at POEE.org fit to 8x11 with some space at
the top and the bottom that would be ideal for this.  If you like the
idea I'll design a frame for them to go in and present it to you for
your approval.  If you like it I'll set up the images (and again
present them for your approval) and then post them to the
PrincipiaDiscordia.com site for distribution as a GASM ("Golden Apple
Seed Mission").

Whaddaya think?

Yours,

-sf23!

Reply:

from   laramie   dreamspell.net
to   shadowfist23
date   Sat, Nov 29, 2008 at 6:14 PM
subject   RE: discordian colouring book as advertising
      
HI!

Happy synchronicity! I was just thinking that it was time to do something
to remind people of Discordia, and of coloring books. Sounds like a great
plan. I look forward to seeing the frame you come up with.

- Laramie Sasseville

I can of course create the frames myself, and I will if none of you spags step up.  But my time is limited and my layout skillz rusty, and I'm sure one of you WOMP rats could make something in 5 or 10 minutes that would look better than something that'll take me 30 or 40, when I can find the time to get around to it. 

Text to use:
(header)
A Discordian Coloring Page for you to enjoy!
Read the Book at http://www.principiadiscordia.com
Page X of 30 - Collect them all!
(footer)
copyright Laramie Sasseville  1982 - all rights reserved - used by permission
See more of the artist's work at http://www.dreamspell.net

The images are here: http://poee.org/living/GetBook.aspx?BookPageID=15

Design considerations:
- This is fundamentally a teaser campaign, so the design should be as spare as possible to avoid distractions and keep to the point: the links
- Same text for all images, apart from the page number
-  I did say "frame" in the email but I'm not certain the images require one, a header and a footer alone might be plenty
- The images themselves contain the subversive content and can stand on their own
- The use of the phrase "Read the Book" when referring to PD.com gives the curious some additional direction as to where to go when they hit the site, as the same phrase appears right on the homepage
- Text should clearly legible in a 1st generation photocopy, ideally so in a 2nd or 3rd generation one so the font shouldn't be too fancy
   
Comments:
This is primarily a teaser campaign, so it should be minimalist - the pictures are the hook, the message is the weblink.  This will hopefully result in some people ending up reading the Principia and/or The Black Iron Prison, both proven recruiting tools.  It will hopefully net Laramie some web hits as well and maybe some sales - the timing is right close enough to Xmas that it might also result in a few Discordian Xmas presents being bought and given, and I happen to think that's pretty cool.

Inspired in part by vexati0n's recent Critique: "Now, while people might read a flyer or a pamphlet, they won't spend much time reflecting on it."   Using an image as a hook bypasses the "tl;dr" effect.  If we can tease people to surf to the site, we have a better chance of them sticking around and reading.

Print 'em, leave 'em wherever.

I was imagining folding pages into thirds and applying a label to the outside.  I'm open to suggestions there, though again it should be enticing but simple and pretty up front, like "Hey, this colouring page is for you!  Yeah, YOU!  Enjoy!"  Potentially just written by hand, but it might be good to format something for printing too.

edited to add a link to the images