Description:

For Future Jaffas is a risograph-printed publication and concertina designed to support students transitioning into university life in Tāmaki Makaurau Auckland. As Aotearoa New Zealand’s largest city, Auckland can feel overwhelming and isolating—particularly for students arriving from smaller towns or different cultural contexts. This project responds to that emotional and social dislocation by offering a tangible, peer-informed guide created by someone who has navigated the same path.
The publication shares lived reflections and insights through collage, unfiltered layouts, and informal, colloquial writing. It avoids prescriptive advice in favour of presenting honest experiences—from homesickness and identity, to social rituals and navigating the city’s idiosyncrasies. By doing so, it positions the student as the expert rather than the institution, offering a sense of solidarity and recognition at a pivotal life stage.
What distinguishes For Future Jaffas is its departure from digital-first resources. While universities tend to rely on websites and social media for student orientation, this project offers something physical—something to hold, annotate, and revisit. Research indicates that printed materials promote stronger emotional engagement and long-term recall compared to digital formats (Jones, 2014; Jarrett, 2022). Designed with Gen Z students in mind, the publication and its concertina counterpart resist the ephemerality of digital media by encouraging slower, more reflective engagement.

The visual strategy draws from collage as a design method. This approach mirrors the fragmented, layered emotions that accompany significant change. Paired with risograph printing—a process that embraces variation and imperfection—the work reflects the emotional texture of beginning university. Typography, layout, and annotation are all employed to simulate the erratic, energetic, and often contradictory experience of adjusting to independence, academic life, and new social environments.

The concertina acts as an alternative format for those who engage more easily with succinct, image-led content. Together, the publication and concertina function as an accessible and emotionally resonant toolkit—one that validates student voices, acknowledges the ambiguity of early adulthood, and creates space for humour and vulnerability.

For Future Jaffas ultimately works as a form of creative peer mentoring. It contributes to social and emotional wellbeing by affirming that uncertainty is part of growth, and that shared experience can ease the burden of transition. In a field often dominated by institutional narratives, it offers a fresh and authentic student-led perspective—one messy, vibrant page at a time.