Marketing a Successful Single Annual Library Teen Art Show into TWO Annual Art Shows

Library website banner ad.

Top L-R: PSA & certificate. Bottom L-R: Lanyard labels & medals

Youth Services staff at Headquarters Library of the Alachua County Library District held an annual Teen Art Show for the past 10 years. It had become so successful that staying on top of all the organizing—and finding floor space for the attending crowd and all the entries—had become a challenge. So for its 11th year, they decided to divide the art show into two separate art shows, one in the autumn for youth aged 12-15, then another one in the spring for youth aged 16-19. Of course, this meant that the event couldn't be referred to the 11th Annual Teen Art Show. Instead, the events would be called "Teen Art Show (for ages 12-15)" and "Teen Art Show (for ages 16-19)." Thus began a new era of annual Teen Art Shows for the Headquarters Library.

For promoting this new direction, I decided to leverage the design sensibility already in place from previous Teen Art Shows. This would help aid in the transition from one established event to two similarly related events. Design work would continue to use winning artwork from the previous year's show featured as the base art of the new publicity materials. The winning artwork would be featured in its entirety on each marketing collateral item, and also serve as a border treatment surrounding the various designs. Moving forward, a different display typeface font would be used, and the winning artwork would be shown as an image on an artist's easel to further impart the idea of it being physically on display. The only changes between the two different age group collaterals would be the use of the previous year's winning artwork and reference to the different age groups.

Below are the different collaterals created (+ print quantities):

Quarter page handbills (600)
8.5x11 inch sign (25)
8.5x11 inch vote for favorite sign (3)
23x34 inch poster (1) 
Broadcast media public service announcement ad (1) 
Website banner ad (1) 
Microsoft Publisher judge lanyard label template (1) 
Microsoft Publisher artwork label template (1)
Winning artwork medal labels (12) 
Winning participant certificates (12) 

Entrant categories for this art show were: 1st, 2nd and 3rd Place with four (4) Honorable Mentions, plus five (5) overall prizes for: Best in Show, Logo Winner, Best Photography, Best Sculpture or 3D artwork, and Crowd Favorite.

L-R: Quarter page handbill, 8x11 / 21x28 inch sign, and 8x11 inch vote sign.

Library Marketing Designs Promote Author Ilyasah Shabazz Event

45x45 inch display poster.

Author Ilyasah Shabazz will visit the Alachua County Library District to sign books and talk about her work as a community organizer, activist, motivational speaker, and author of the critically acclaimed Growing Up X. She is also the daughter of Malcolm X and Betty Shabazz.

She is co-editor with Herb Boyd of The Diary of Malcolm X, worked with illustrator AG Ford on The Boy Who Grew Up to Become Malcolm X and with Kekla Magoon, on the Novel X. 

Marketing collaterals designed to promote this event include (+quantities): 

45x45 inch display poster (1) 
21x28 inch display poster mounted on foam core board (4)
8x11 inch sign (45)
Quarter page handbill (300)
3.25x4.25in newspaper print advertisement (1)
Broadcast television public service announcement advertisement (1)
Website banner advertisement (1)
Social media banner advertisement (1)

Newsletter, sign and poster, handbill, and newspaper print advertisement.

Website banner advertisement.

Broadcast television PSA advertisement.

Library Marketing Designs Promote Author Greg Neri Event

Library website banner advertisement.

Newsletter pages and internal publicity.

Author Greg Neri will visit the Alachua County Library District on September 16 to talk about his work. He has written several children and young adult books, including Ghetto Cowboy, The Knockout Games, Chess Rumble, Yummy and True & Nelle. Neri’s work has tackled difficult situations kids and teens can find themselves in, such as peer pressure and bullying, and how they can find positive ways to move past those issues.  

Neri provided the library with an illustrated image of himself that had previous been used for a "READ" poster elsewhere. 

In order for the image to work within my variety of different design layouts, I silhouetted his body out from the background. I also took a detail portion of the background to enlarge then ghost it back in varying percentages—depending on what size of text would need to be read over top of it—for use as larger backgrounds on different collateral pieces.

Broadcast television PSA.

Collaterals created for this event include (+ quantities):

Quarter page handbill (250)
8x11 inch sign (35)
21x28 inch poster (4)
3.25x4 inch newspaper advertisement (1)
School publication print advertisement (1)
Magazine print advertisement (1)
Website banner advertisement (1)
Newsletter cover and interior page 
(1 page each) 
Broadcast television public service announcement advertisement (1)

Three external publicity collateral advertisements.

THINK... Library Newsletter, Autumn 2015 Issue

Newsletter cover features visiting authors.

The library's free, 12-page autumn edition of THINK... newsletter arrived in September. The issue covers quarterly news and over 800 scheduled events from September through November. A printed edition of 2,750 copies is delivered not only to all twelve library branch locations but also to select non-library businesses to extend its reach further into the community. Online copies are also available on the library's website at, http://aclib.us/news.  

Development of the newsletter begins with library staff entering their planned quarterly events into the library's electronic calendar system during a 30-day period prior to beginning the editorial production process, which in turn takes an additional 30 days of production prior to delivery of the publication to the public. Printing services are outsourced to a local printer, taking five to seven days before receipt of the printed product back to the design department for separating and shipping different quantities to the 12 district libraries and local businesses.

Library website blog icon.

Events published in the newsletter are the same as seen on the library's website calendar of events. Due to limited space in the newsletter, complete descriptive information about the events are not published, however, those details remain available on the online branch calendars.

Project collaterals created in association with publication of THINK... include (+ quantities):

12-page print edition (2750)
Library website digital edition (1)
Library website blog icon (1)
Television broadcast public service announcement advertisement (1)

Television broadcast public service announcement.