Library Garden Display Poster

Large format poster background etching, plus additional vegetable images for decoration.

Spring has sprung and if you're like my wife, you've already planted your home garden and are probably already eating from it too. At the library, we're promoting gardening awareness in May—whether it be for vegetables or flowers.

Background etching image prior to use.

I sourced for garden images—both photos and illustrations. Because of the display's enormous size, 116w x 83v inches, there are few very high quality photographic images that will scale up to that size. Instead, I sourced primarily for free public domain scalable vector illustrations. Once I had a few I thought had potential, I submitted them to the librarian requesting the display poster. Included in my submission were a variety of vegetables and a very nice, graphic line art etching style of leaves and flowers.

The librarian asked for a quote with a nice frame around it to be included on the poster. I set the quote in a nice, handwritten typeface (Jane Austen—freely available online) and made the box I placed it in semi transparent so the background etching image could be slightly visible through it. With the background etching image being so busy, I opted for a simple double ruled border around the quote. A design proof was created and emailed to the librarian for review, and upon reply approval I set up the file for printing.

Using our Hewlett-Packard DesignJet 800 large format printer, I printed background etching image in two long strips, then trimmed and spliced them together using double-sided tape. I printed the vegetables as large as I could on 11x17 inch paper and employed the help of a couple of volunteers to trim them out. My plan was to tape the vegetables up over top the etching background during installation.

Installation was easy; it took two people to place and pin to the bulletin board wall, and a third person to finish up with placement of the vegetables. I came back later to review it and was disappointed to find that all the vegetables had been placed in a very structured, angular fashion, rather than more organic, randomly placed one. But ok...what the heck; everyone's vision of a garden can be different!

All-in-all, the solution and execution was a simple and refined--and good timing too because two days after printing, the DesignJet printer broke and was out of commission for a week.

Background image printed in two strips, then taped together to create one large poster.