YMT Formative is a kindergarten books design and development organisation founded by Hari Talupuru in 2019 to create books for Indian pre-schools with illustrations that are India relevant along with graphics that are designed using multiple intelligence which showcase Indian tradition covering Indian values.

During multiple interactions with the kindergarten coordinators and the management, there was a clear gap identified with all such schools that are using generic off-the-shelf kindergarten books. The gap was mainly the school’s lesson plan and the way the content is designed in almost all the generic books. Either the theme would not match or the chapters will be in complete disarray making the teachers go the middle chapter first before covering the first chapter. Also, many of the books follow the regular alphabet approach which does help schools that are focused on teaching using the LTI method or the phonics approach where it starts with SATI.

YMTF designs books specific to the lesson plan of the school with all the content provided by the school. Illustrations are created to exactly match the content as shared by the school and every image is carefully designed to be very attractive for the children of that specific age while using colours that are recommended as per multiple intelligence and NLP specialists.

Each and every page of these books is approved by the school team and only then will get published, hence providing the school with utmost control on the content and lesson plan.

Marketing and promotion are two of the most time-consuming as well as the most difficult activities for schools. Many schools keep spending on conventional, digital and social media channels to create visibility with the parents and the target audience. The more the schools spend on promotion, lesser is the overall positive image created with the parents.

YMTF has put in a research of over 3 years to identify the best promotion possibilities for schools and #Hari Talupuru - Founder the solution for schools is to create branded books and get the children to take these books home. Family members, relatives and neighbours including the colleagues of the parents, who-so-ever visit the children, get to see the professional, branded books and the right visibility is created.

Over 10 schools have already confirmed that they have reduced their promotion budget after getting these school branded and professionally designed books, their admissions are up by over ~30 to 35% year-on-year.

For such preschools / schools with over 4 or 5 branches, standardisation of their education process is one of the biggest #YMT Formative concerns. The general concern is that each of the teams starts developing their own style and thus losing out on

the advantage of the having the right and successful process getting diluted leading to erosion of school strength.

These school branded, lesson plan based books provide the much-required standardisation with all the teachers following the lesson plan across branches, franchises or locations. This leads to increased acceptance with the parents and at the same time a bit more flexibility in moving students from one school to the other based on their professional movement requirements.

Hari Talupuru, the founder has over 20+ years of experience in branding, marketing and communication with most of the experience covering international / global implementation of branding. He has experience of working with both Indian and global MNCs. It is his constant desire to use his skillset of painting, sketching and creativity that drove him to move away from the corporate jobs and start YMTF to start contributing to the Indian education system in the website form of illustrations. .

Hari was ably supported and pushed by his better-half who is a well-known name in kindergarten education system in Bangalore, to use his creativity combining her early education experience, multiple intelligence concepts and NLP basics to create books that are of superior quality with graphics that are catchy for the young minds.

YMTF has now successfully developed over 72 books across schools and is now engaged in creating another 144 books this academic year that will be in use from the year 2024-25.

To summarise, the advantages / benefit of the overall concept of having school branded, illustrations focused on Indian traditions, values and morals are:
● Content more info is website illustrated to match the lesson plan of each school and all the graphics are mostly unique to the school.
● Illustrations created are licensed to the school and the schools will be the ultimate owners of these books.
● School branding helps in increasing admissions by increasing visibility across target audience.