Integrated POP Marketing Signage Designed to Raise Literacy Office Awareness, Donations, and to Thank Community

The desire to generate a little fundraising turned into an opportunity to thank the commuity for their support. This design for a 7x5 inch laminated coutertop jug label paved the way.

Vertical banner.

The Alachua County Library District Literacy Office approached me to develop marketing materials that could bring attention to their literacy efforts and to assist in fundraising. The items would be used during book sale events at the local Friends of the Library book house. The initial brief asked me to explore solutions for a free-standing dimensional floor display to promote the Literacy Office, and to design adhesive labels for donation jugs that would be placed on point-of-purchase counter tops to ask for spare change. 

A few months earlier, I had provided design services to rebrand the ACLD Literacy Office, ( http://librarygraphicdesign.blogspot.com/2014/08/integrated-library-literacy-collateral.html ) so I was fortunate to already have established design standards I could use to extend to this project. I also had photos taken from previous book sale events to refer to and used these to assess the book house retail environment space while I generated ideas about presentation opportunities. 

I knew from past experience that the book sale environment was a pretty chaotic place; crowded wall-to-wall with people and book shelving. At the check-out area, a long, stagnate line of customers would often form which would provide a perfect location to get and hold their attention, but sight lines would be blocked from around shoulder height down to the floor. I knew that the best bet for catching people's eyes would have to have visuals be at least waist-height and higher, so I developed and presented an eight foot free-standing floor display concept in the shape of an open book that would require construction with wooden building materials, PVC piping and fabric, or other solutions. I also presented a series of mid- and large-format vinyl wall-mounted and beam-suspended banners that were sure to not be overlooked. To help demonstrate how effective the banners would appear, I photoshoppped the concept banners into the existing event photos for a before-and-after comparison.

Proposed, canceled floor display.

During my on-site visit to the Friends of the Library book house, my floor display concept was presented and well-received, but a second concept was put forth by the Friends that they were willing to explore and construct themselves: a stack of books piled up neatly, high enough to become a waist-high cube of books. The top surface could be then used to set up additional books and marketing materials. We all thought it a plausible idea and encouraged Friends of the Library volunteers to develop that. A large, two-sided sandwich board was also  offered at that time to use for additional marketing, so I added that to my list of banners to design for and during subsequent meetings presented concepts that utilized the banner design styling.

Before-and-after proposed banner solutions.

After all the initial concept and design production was completed, a vendor quote for producing the vinyl banners was acquired then presented for client approval. Unfortunately, financing for vendor-provided materials became an issue for the library, so I was asked to print and laminate as many of the smaller items in-house as I could for use at the event. Despite not using the largest, most prominent banners, the remaining smaller scale banners and donation jug labels were still beneficial for raising Literacy Office awareness and advocating for additional funding.

Left: available sandwich board. Middle two: concept sign designs for sandwich board use. Right: diagram indicating areas needed to cut out so that existing hooks on sandwich board could slide through. 

Projects designed (and delivered or canceled):

138x36 inch Banner / Literacy Office (canceled after development)
138x36 inch Banner / FOL (canceled after development)
138x36 inch Banner / ACLD (canceled after development)
20x40 Literacy Office Banner, Laminated and Mounted on Foam Core Board (2)
29x40 inch Sandwich Board Literacy Office Sign (1)
29x40 inch Sandwich Board Friends of the Library Sign (1)
7x5 inch Laminated Literacy Office Donation Jug Labels (14)

Three 138x36 inch vinyl banners not fabricated for use after design development.