08 February 2011

Black History Month Display

The display poster is comprised of many individual pieces.

We managed to get organized and get up our Black History Month display at the Headquarters Library today. I must say, I was really pleased with it and was getting compliments on it before it even made it up on the wall. 


I printed this wall display design in three large pieces: the center quilt image on one large format sheet, and the background quilt frame--cut horizontally across it's length--in two sections, top and bottom. Next, I printed out 8.5x11in biographical information pages that I pinned overtop the background quilt image and further out onto the bulletin board wall. Each bio page had a length of real yarn that attached to a stick pin on both ends, tracing a path from the bio page to the photo of the person it belonged to.


We will also include a "vote" box, wrapped in the same quilt design (but with no profile photos on it), to ask patrons to offer their suggestions on who they think would be a good person to add to the quilt. Once we tally up some votes, we plan to substitute some existing profile photos and bios with newer ones to keep the display constantly changing and interesting.
Mapping out display elements in the art room during production before hanging.
Pre- and post-stringing with yarn to connect profile photos to their bio pages.

9 comments:

  1. Glad to see you back, you must've been busy preparing for this month. I have to say that this is my favorite display you've done (being a quilter of course). I hope you don't mind I printed it out so I can blow it up and see it better (your credits on it!). Now I can read the biographies. Once again, engaging the library patrons to be involved with the display is dyanamo!

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  2. Even I can't read the bios from the enlarged view of this image, so let me send you a .pdf of them.

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  3. This was a great display. Would you share your pdf with me also?
    We have a wall display of pictures for Black History Month, as well as a book display on a long counter and great bookmarks depicting famous Black leaders, musicians, educators, etc. And if I'm lucky, I'll get the blog up today.
    Keep up the great work!

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  4. Today we're on to a second round of profiles being posted. The second round swaps out eight of the first-rounders to include:

    W.E.B. Du Bois, John Coltrane, Arthur Ashe, Oprah Winfrey, Melvin Van Peebles, Bill Cosby, Carol Moseley-Braun, and Audre Lorde.

    People on the first round included:
    Carter Woodson, John Lewis, Sidney Poitier, Colin Powell, Marian Anderson, B.B. King, Neil de Grasse Tyson, Nikki Giovanni, Alice Walker, Barack Obama, Rev. Jesse Jackson, Sr., Nikki Giovanni, and Neil deGrasse Tyson.

    We're looking forward to a third set as well, using suggestions from patrons. They filled our suggestion box up and I'm looking forward to seeing who they suggested!

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  5. Is it possible to get a pdf version of this display?

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  6. It is possible, yes. Please feel welcome to contact me at ssterling@aclib.us.

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  7. While looking for information on the internet this week, I came across a web post by DTG Magazine, Graphic Design & Publishing Center in Harrisonburg, VA. On the web page were images of my post shown above and a kind acknowledgement toward my design. My thanks to Fred Showker for that, even though I wasn't notified to request permission on use of my images. You can read Fred's words and see other wonderful images relating to his post here:

    http://www.graphic-design.com/design/black-history-month-2012?page=0,2

    I did want to correct Fred on a portion of his caption, however, when it stated: "Unfortunately it's a Blogger site, so there's no contact and Scot didn't provide any means of contact" and to let readers know that simply by adding your comment to any blog entry, I will receive it and be able to reply you in kind, based on whatever information you provide.

    My message to Fred stated:

    "Hello Fred,

    I recently discovered your blog post which includes images of my work. I hadn't been contacted for a request to use these images on your blog, but thank you for the credit, nevertheless.

    Please note that the caption on your web page incorrectly states that I didn't offer any means for contact. Viewers are welcome and able to leave comments to any post as a way of contact (as you could have as well to request using my images). In fact, as you will see on that particular blog entry, I even provided my email contact address in a reply comment to someone who inquired about the design in their comment.

    Thank you for your interest and kind regards to your continuing effort to share with the design community.

    Scot Sterling"

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  8. Beautiful display and clever idea to include the patrons' suggestions. Thanks for showing that libraries can have quality designs in their displays.

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  9. Thank you very much, Superbrarian (I love your name, by the way)! I press content managers to think critically about their displays, to see how they can get people to stop, linger over the visuals, read, and hopefully learn something. Making the display actionable to patrons by providing web links, handouts, interactive elements, or pointing them in the direction of collections and/or resources the display is promoting brings extra value to the display. The more time I see someone standing in front of a display soaking in all there is to see, the happier I am. =)

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