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.