Welcome to another installment of Art In An Hour. In this episode, one of our youth services librarians came into the design department early in the afternoon, asking if I could enlarge a picture of their youth services web page. In her hands she showed me three 8.5x11 inch printouts of different sections of the youth services web page that she had taped together to form one longer sheet--something about the size of a 11x17 inch tabloid-sized sheet of paper.
"You want it to be this size, or larger?" I asked, then quickly got out ahead of the answer by asking "What are you going to use it for?" She indicated that she was going to give a short talk to two different groups of kids to show them how to find good books using the youth services web page and related links. "About how many people will be looking at this page? Up to 30 all at the same time? Maybe you'd like to have print outs you could hand out to them to refer to while you're talking? Or if not, perhaps you'll need one much bigger poster size image if they're sitting some distance away."
"Hmm, yes, you're probably right about that," she'd reflect. She wasn't certain how many people she'd be talking to at each discussion, but estimated that it could be anywhere between 10 and 30, all gathered around on chairs or on the floor. It sounded like a job for a bigger image than a 11x17 inch page.
"How about this: how about I do screen captures of your webpage, strip them together as a single image in photoshop, and print it about as tall as one of your usual 23x34 inch poster page sheets you clip to a standing easel for your storytime events. It won't be as wide as 23 inches, but we can cover a foam core board with coloured paper, and then lay the long view of the webpage over it. That way, if you need to do this again in the future, you'll have a dedicated board already set up for presentation. If you ever need to use an updated image, we could print out a new image and lay it overtop the older one, or remove the old one and replace it with the new one. And if you don't need to use it again, wrapping the full board for a nice presentation instead of chopping down the board can save it for a future project." She thought that was a terrific idea.
"When do you need it by?" I asked. "Well, the talks are tomorrow morning. I'm sorry, but I just found out today." she replied. "Oh...so that means you need it by by the end of today!" I said, looking at my watch. 3:00pm. Puppy dog eyes looking back at me. "Okay, I better get cracking then!"
I called up the youth webpage on the internet, took a screen capture of it and pasted it into a Photoshop file. Went back to the internet page, scrolled down, and took a second screen capture, then pasted it below the first image in Photoshop. Repeat one last time, crop and save as a single image file, then create an Indesign layout file to actual size and import the image. Print it out to the large format Hewlett-Packard DesignJet 800 while I wrapped the foam core board with a long sheet of coloured butcher paper. Once the print was finished, trim to size and double-stick tape it down onto the board. Wa-lah! Deliver to the youth services department.
Time: 3:50pm.
"It's perfect!" she exclaimed, happy to see the vision turned into reality. I was happy to see her happy too. I was equally happy that there were no glitches in the process...mis-information, content changes, printer errors or slow printing, ink running out, lack of materials, etc. It's great when the process goes smooth as butter--especially when time is short and there are other projects in production at the same time (which there always are).
"You want it to be this size, or larger?" I asked, then quickly got out ahead of the answer by asking "What are you going to use it for?" She indicated that she was going to give a short talk to two different groups of kids to show them how to find good books using the youth services web page and related links. "About how many people will be looking at this page? Up to 30 all at the same time? Maybe you'd like to have print outs you could hand out to them to refer to while you're talking? Or if not, perhaps you'll need one much bigger poster size image if they're sitting some distance away."
"Hmm, yes, you're probably right about that," she'd reflect. She wasn't certain how many people she'd be talking to at each discussion, but estimated that it could be anywhere between 10 and 30, all gathered around on chairs or on the floor. It sounded like a job for a bigger image than a 11x17 inch page.
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| Double-stick taping the image down to its backing board. |
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| The finished presentation board: 36x23 inches. |
I called up the youth webpage on the internet, took a screen capture of it and pasted it into a Photoshop file. Went back to the internet page, scrolled down, and took a second screen capture, then pasted it below the first image in Photoshop. Repeat one last time, crop and save as a single image file, then create an Indesign layout file to actual size and import the image. Print it out to the large format Hewlett-Packard DesignJet 800 while I wrapped the foam core board with a long sheet of coloured butcher paper. Once the print was finished, trim to size and double-stick tape it down onto the board. Wa-lah! Deliver to the youth services department.
Time: 3:50pm.
"It's perfect!" she exclaimed, happy to see the vision turned into reality. I was happy to see her happy too. I was equally happy that there were no glitches in the process...mis-information, content changes, printer errors or slow printing, ink running out, lack of materials, etc. It's great when the process goes smooth as butter--especially when time is short and there are other projects in production at the same time (which there always are).
Loved this!!! Just loved this!!! And the dialog was great too!!! Good job!!! JS
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