Survival Guide to Toronto: OCAD U International Student Guide

a practical, student-designed guidebook for incoming international students at OCAD University, covering housing, transit, groceries, health resources, and community life in Toronto. Designed in collaboration with illustrator Liam Ethan and distributed through OCAD's International Student Support Office.

a practical, student-designed guidebook for incoming international students at OCAD University, covering housing, transit, groceries, health resources, and community life in Toronto. Designed in collaboration with illustrator Liam Ethan and distributed through OCAD's International Student Support Office.

problem

Incoming OCAD international students had no single, practical reference for the city, housing, transit, health, community: just scattered, over-formal onboarding pages.

solution

Built a 22-page, colour-coded guidebook across nine categories with illustrator Liam Ethan, printed in-house at OCAD's own Copy and Print Centre.

A pocket-sized guide (9.25 × 6.75") students actually use as a reference, not a read-once handout.

The design constraint was real and specific: the guide had to be printed in-house at OCAD's Copy and Print Centre, and the design had to earn its energy through colour, type, and information architecture rather than production value.

The guide was distributed physically at tabling events and published digitally through OCAD's International Student Support Office website. It was one of the first student-produced publications at OCAD to be both designed and printed entirely by students, using the university's own facilities.

year

2025

timeframe

20 Days

tools

Adobe InDesign, Illustrator and Photoshop