Cow Tales Story Hour at the Library Marketing Design

8.5x11 inch sign used MS Word clip art
provided by the librarian.

Cow Tales is a youth services event to be held at our Headquarters library. It will feature stories, rhymes and fun for children ages 11 and under.

The librarian putting the event on wanted some signs and handbills to promote the event. She provided the essential text and a cute clip art illustration from her Microsoft Word clip art selection.

Normally I'm not a big fan of the MS Word clip art library, but this particular image I really liked due to its graphic quality and colour scheme.

I typically I send design proofs to requestors of publicity materials to make sure I have all information correct and to their approval before printing. During the single round of edits for this particular project, the only things that changed was to add a subhead to indicate what "Cow Tales" was, add sponsor logos, and add the time of day that the event would take place.

Quarter page handbills use the same image as
shown on the 8.5x11 inch sign. Library brand logo
was included since it would be used for advertising
outside of the the library property.

I chose a simple Arial Rounded typeface for ease of reading and also because the rounded letter forms have a more juvenile appearance to them compared to more angled versions of the same Arial type family.

The event didn't require too much publicity due to already established event popularity at that time of day. So we only printed eight 8.5x11 inch signs and 80 quarter page handbills for display and distribution.

You may notice a small variation between the sign and handbill design. It has to do with the use of the library brand logo. We have a general rule of thumb for use of our library logo: if a promotional piece posted inside the library, it is not required that the brand logo be used on it. However, if the piece will be circulated outside of the library--for example, at off-site locations such as advertising in publications, or as signs and handbills distributed throughout the community at non-library environments, then we include the library brand logo.