By Sandra Hentges, Marketing Director for Imprint Publishing
Picture this: You’re in the middle of a tense meeting, and you glance at the margins of your notepad. You sketch a simple house and start to shade it in. Your mind begins to clear and the tension melts away. You’ve just experienced the magic of coloring. It’s not just for adults either– Psychologists, teachers, and parents report that children relax, light up with creativity, and open their minds for learning when they are given the opportunity to put crayons to paper.
Mrs. Luebbering, a fourth-grade teacher, likes to use coloring sheets as a visual aid to introduce concepts such as plant anatomy and the solar system. “Coloring pages are a great way to review what we are learning,” said Luebbering. “They are also a great tool for self-expression, and I think coloring helps students learn to focus.”
Scholastic is the world’s largest publisher of children’s books. Their books can be found in 115,000 schools, reaching 54 million students in the U.S. An article by Michael Rhattigan, on the parenting page of their website supports the benefits of coloring.
“Coloring and drawing are two of the earliest and simplest activities we do, but they’re also extremely beneficial,” Rhattigan said. “Learning can be introduced according to the child’s age and ability. You can focus on learning numbers, colors, geography, history, and even spelling.”
Imprint Publishing, a division of Communique, has been connecting the love for coloring, inspiring creativity, and sharing knowledge through activity books since 1989. For more than 30 years, Imprint Publishing has developed and printed dozens of popular booklets on a variety of topics from farming to sustainability. Now, that experience and information is available in a digital format.
Imprint Publishing has developed new digital coloring apps. One of the apps, currently in production, is for the Northarvest Bean Growers and the other, focused on Missouri agriculture, is called Ag Education on the Move and is now available in all the app stores. A third digital app has been developed for the banking industry. It helps children learn financial literacy, and it is branded by the banks that sponsor it.
Branding coloring products with an association, organization, or company logo is a natural way to connect the love of coloring with knowledge, lessons, and information about that subject. For example, if a child is coloring a picture of a farmer and a crop field, they are learning about agriculture. The logo on the front of the coloring book provides a symbol that associates the information to that organization, as well as gives adults a visual connection to the brand and educational outreach.
When Imprint began working in the digital app coloring space it did so with families in mind. Elementary art teacher Mrs. Luebbert said she sees value in having coloring apps available, especially in our tech-driven society. The portability of an app for travel is very appealing to parents, and kids learn about colors, shapes and proportions, and technology; as well as the subject matter in the illustrations and audio.
Whether kids are coloring using crayons from inside the box, or technology outside of it – Imprint makes learning fun!
Explore the options for customized activity books – print and digital – and learn more about Imprint Publishing by visiting www.ImprintPublishing.org.