Library Bookmobile Schedule Update, 2011

Two older bookmobile brochures (left and center) provided factual 
and concept material for a redesigned version (right).

Our library has two bookmobiles that deliver over 50,000 library materials to patrons annually within the county. The service had been working on updating its route schedule since February 2011 and was in need of a simple brochure that could be passed out to patrons at the locations they visited. The last brochure cited 20 in-city stops and 8 county stops. The new brochure would need to indicate 22 in-city stops and 6 county stops.

Top: Brochure exterior. Bottom: Brochure interior.

The bookmobile manager provided me with a copy of our most current, 2009 schedule for reference, and an even earlier brochure from 1980 that used a message "Save Gas" as a great reason to enjoy the services of the bookmobile. I pulled elements from each brochure to incorporate into my redesign. I would have loved to use a profile view knock-out of the bookmobile, but none existed. If a more extensive set of promotions had been required, I would have requested a special photo shoot for the vehicles. But as it was, this assignment was only for a black/white brochure. So I used what I had, which were images with busy backgrounds, showing the vehicle in slight perspective angles. I showed the newest, most graphically decorated bookmobile exterior and raised the contrast levels of each shot slightly to give the images a crisper appearance than the original photos offered.


The design development was handled entirely in-house, but because a print run of 1,500 copies was requested, services of an outside printer were preferred in order to save wear and tear on our office copier. In order to save on printing costs,the bookmobile department chose to use for this 2-sided brochure a 1-colour black/white quad-fold design (three folds for four panels).


The department was eager to get brochures in the hands of patrons but still had some route schedule changes to finalize, so I printed out 100 copies in-house to tide them over until final changes could be made and the balance of prints could be produced by the outside printer. We made the final revisions the next week and sent them on to the printer.

Left: Bookmobile department concept. Right: Design department deliverable.

Piggy-backing on the request for this new brochure was an additional request: to create an outdoor yard sign that could be placed at the street corner near where the bookmobile would be parked. The purpose of this sign would be to catch the attention of vehicular and pedestrian traffic that passed by, alerting them of the presence and availability of the nearby bookmobile which would also be visible from the sign. 

A strip of signs lay on the production table waiting
to be trimmed after emerging from the laminator.

On left is what I received from the department to consider. I made some modifications--as seen on right--to reduce the number of words so that a shorter, faster-read message could be digested from passing traffic, essential words could be enlarged, typographically styled for more impact, and accentuated with bold, eye-catching colours for the most important and perhaps most enticing words (Bookmobile, Today, and FREE). 


With their approval, I printed, laminated, and double-side tapped it to an inexpensive, plastic-coated corrugated yard sign purchased from Lowe's hardware. 
Total signs required: 7.