New volunteers at Spitalfields City Farm are handed a small square booklet along with their welcome. In 12 pages it tells them where the farm came from, what it values and why their time matters, then signs off with a big, bold THANK YOU! It is a simple, well designed stapled booklet, and that simplicity is its strength.
Made to Hand Out and Hold On To
Inside, a contents list sits beside a message from the chief executive. Then comes the farm’s story: founded in 1978 on a former railway goods depot, now a registered charity welcoming over 60,000 visitors a year. Further in, the farm sets out its values of wellbeing, openness, credibility, integrity and responsibility, and describes the volunteering roles on offer. It is handy to give out on a first day and still useful weeks later, when someone wants to check a detail.
The cover wraps a band of photographs round from front to back: heirloom tomatoes, a squash cradled in muddy hands, a donkey gazing down the lens, a fluffy cat, a pig trotting along a leafy lane. White strips above and below carry the donkey emblem, cut like a woodblock print, the words Volunteer Handbook and a neat “Updated 2026”. Laid flat, the bar becomes one long collage of farm life.
Lydia, a designer and illustrator from East London with a long history of work for the farm, set the body text in a Courier-style typewriter face and gave the headings a condensed, rough-edged display font. Plenty of space around short columns keeps every page calm and friendly on the eye, and little line drawings of a watering can, a goat, a duck and a wheelbarrow of seedlings add character at no extra cost. If you are writing a staff or volunteer guide, that pairing of plain typewriter text and one characterful heading font says approachable before anyone reads a word.
Bright White Recycled Stock, Colour Only Outside
The handbook is 210 x 210mm and self cover, meaning the outer four pages share the same 170gsm 100% recycled uncoated stock as the inside. Uncoated was a must for a city farm, and it feels great, matt and soft under the thumb. Our house uncoated is a bright white, so the colours of the cover photography bounce off the page. Inside, black ink carries the text and line work, which keeps the job economical without making it look cheap.
Weight was the one real decision. With our sample in his hands, Phil, the farm’s chief executive, asked whether dropping to 120gsm would save much. We priced it the next morning, the difference was small, and he stayed with 170gsm for a booklet with some heft. You could make the same call on yours: spend colour on the cover where first impressions happen, keep the inside to one ink, and put the saving into a better paper. Our comparison of recycled, uncoated, silk and gloss papers explains how each one behaves.
Two Sample Packs and a Tuesday Dispatch
Lydia sent her spec in October with Phil copied in, as she always does. Harriet had a quote back within half an hour, and Mike posted our paper swatches to Phil that afternoon. When they went astray in January, a replacement set was in the post box the same morning Lydia asked. She supplied artwork with production notes on a Friday afternoon, and insisted the farm give final proof approval with a fresh pair of eyes. The handbooks left us the following Tuesday and reached the farm the next day.
“Thanks, as ever, for speedy service.”
Lydia, designer
In another note she put it more simply: “ExWhyZed cares about quality.” For a charity, this format is hard to beat: cheap to print and never over engineered. Our guide to planning and printing a stapled booklet covers the basics. When your own handbook is taking shape, brief us on a square booklet for your organisation.
PaperbacksA5, 44 pages, perfect bound£246for 100
