Integrated Promotional Advertising Campaign for Freegal Online Music Service

13x2 foot banners.

Project: Freegal Music Service

Creative brief: Create an integrated advertising campaign comprised of print and digital materials to promote Freegal online music service which provides five free music song downloads per week to subscribers. The campaign seeks to increase public awareness and generate greater subscriber traffic results by being visible in more locations and with greater frequency and duration. The design should provide a new look that captures people's attention and communicates the key points of the service.

Content messaging: Multiple language options were provided, each lacking engaging or inspiring direction. Additional content marketing that advertising was to support was not yet in process, created nor in place, and/or had details still in flux with no reliable completion date in sight.

Number of integrated items requested at outset: Between 16 and 38 unique items.

Number of integrated items requested as opportunities were reassessed and re-imagined: 29 unique items.

Requested turn around time: 15 days. (+ additional deadlines created as adjustments to initial and additional project opportunities were realized and requested). Good luck!

Production challenge note: 27 other unrelated projects with a varying range of their own completion deadlines were also being worked on simultaneously during this same initial time frame. 27 + 16/38 projects = 43/65 projects in 88 hours. No problem!

Sets of PSAs 34x22 inch posters and 11x8.5 inch signs

Website banner advertisement which links to blog.

Website banner advertisement which links to blog.

Children's publication print advertisement.

Projects produced  (+quantities delivered)
Marketing Campaign Concepts 
(33 Integrated Page Designs)
Web blog icon #1 Cool (1)
Web blog icon #2 Soul (1)
Web blog icon #3 Workout (1)
Web banner #1 Cool (1)
Web banner #2 Soul (1)
Web banner #3 Workout (1)
Broadcast TV PSA #1 Cool (1)
Broadcast TV PSA #2 Soul (1)
Broadcast TV PSA #3 Workout (1)
Quarter page Handbill of album covers (400)

Quarter page handbill front (top) and back (bottom).

5.5x3.5 inch Shelf Promo Sign Template (1)
5.5x3.5 inch Shelf Promo Sign #1 Cool (1)
5.5x3.5 inch Shelf Promo Sign #2 Soul (1)
5.5x3.5 inch Shelf Promo Sign #3 Workout (1)
5.75x4.5 inch Print Publication Ad (1)
8.5x11 inch Sign for Airport Users (4)
11x8 inch Sign #1 Cool (45)
11x8 inch Sign #2 Soul (45)
11x8 inch Sign #3 Workout (45)
21x28 inch Poster #1 Cool (6)
21x28 inch Poster #2 Soul (6)
21x28 inch Poster #3 Workout (1) 
34.75x22.125 inch Banner #1 Cool (3) 
34.75x22.125 inch Banner #2 Soul (2) 
34.75x22.125 inch Banner #3 Workout (1)
45x45 inch Poster (1)
13ftx2ft Banner #1 Cool (2)
13ftx2ft Banner #2 Soul (2)
13ftx2ft Banner Workout (1)
1.5 inch Circular Ear Bud Case Adhesive Labels (100)

8.5x11 inch airport user sign

5.5x3.25 inch "shelf talker" cards mount to front of book shelves.

Compare to 2015 collaterals: poster & flyer (left), PSA (center), web ads (top, middle right) and wallet card (bottom right).

Compare to 2013 collaterals: poster & flyer (left), wallet card (center top), print ad (top right) and PSA (bottom right).

Marketing Designs for Author Stephanie A. Smith Library Event

A 45x45 inch large format display poster "set the stage" for
the integrated collaterals designed to promote the author event.

A revised print ad squeezed in a third
location and time.

Todays Art in an Hour installment features the design of promotional marketing materials for our library's upcoming author event featuring Stephanie A. Smith, author of Warpaint and Rocket Baby. I was asked to create a large format 45x45 inch publicity poster, quarter page handbills, a print advert, and a web banner to promote her upcoming speaker event. The materials provided for use included two book covers, a photograph of the author snuggling with her dog, and language for the event specifics. At events that feature a quest speaker I instinctively want to use an image of the person so people can immediately see who will be presenting the material. But as I have come to learn, many authors simply don't take the time to provide a good, even semi-professionally photo of themselves taken for use in promoting their themselves or their products. Once shocking to me, I have grown accustomed to expect this unfortunate trend. In this particular case, the author's face was partly obscured by the pet she was nuzzling into, so I quickly and easily vetoed that image and moved to select the more visually dynamic, striking, and professional looking book covers to use in the design of our publicity.

As it turned out, both the covers used the same colour palette of red, white, and shades of black. I would use the aesthetics of these covers to become the basis of the publicity design. The strength of the book covers was enough to carry the visual impact of the designs, but two covers on a white background with simple text still needed a little variety to break up the monotony of a simple solution. To emphasize that the event would take place on two different dates in two different library branches, I prominently underlined and highlighted in red the two locations. I also used the underscore and highlighted two letters in the author's name to bring a little more of that red up higher into the design as well. The design looked good but bland on plain white, so I used an enlarged and toned back detail portion from one of her book cover illustrations as the background of the entire design. This gave a little visual texture and variety to the background so it wouldn't be so bland. 

The design was scaled down to become six handbills arranged on
an 8.5x14 inch page to print out and trim by hand.

Once the large poster design was finished, I applied it to the handbills which I arranged as six images on an 8.5x14 inch legal page for printing. Seventy six pages of these would be printed out using the office copier and trimmed by hand to size for a total yield of 200 handbills. The same design was slightly modified to a new dimension and saved as a black/white image for a print advert. Image tonal densities were balanced out in Adobe Photoshop for better print reproduction. After completion of the print ad, one of our other branches let us know that they were also having the same event at their branch, so the advert was revised to include them, shoehorning their location and date into the remaining open space under the book covers. Lastly, a different arrangement of the visuals was repurposed for use as the web banner; all removed language that served to detail the locations and dates would appear beneath the image as a caption line on the website.

The design treatment was arranged differently for use
as a web page banner.

Library Marketing Designs for Tennessee & Friends

Website home page web banner repurposed the art from the sign and handbill design.

The simple design evoked a style from another era.

Welcome to another installment of Art In An Hour. In this example I had a library event request for publicity development waiting for me to begin for weeks only to be continuously pushed back off my radar while other more pressing, urgent priority projects kept flaring up. So, what could have been a "luxurious" time frame for concept development eventually dwindled down to hours. In an effort to keep bailing projects out of my congested schedule as quickly as possible, 

I spent about an 20 minutes to illustrate (using Adobe Illustrator) a simple concept that--to me--harkened back to the simple television show lead-in artwork styles of the 1960s and 70s, a time when Tennessee Williams was a literary star that had his works turned into feature length films. I selected an Adobe Illustrator vector-based clip art silhouette image of a man, placed him in Adobe Photoshop to blur the edges, then placed him into my Adobe Illustrator artwork where I completed the rest of it (walls with Library logo and text, suitcase with floor shadow and headline treatment in it). I then imported the black/white art into an InDesign layout file so that I could place the remaining body text because I find working with larger amounts of text to be easier in layout applications than in art applications.

Quarter-page handbills were simply
scaled down versions of the 8.5x11 inch sign.

The illustrated concept was to simply show an opened suitcase sitting on the floor, placed in dark silhouette by a brilliant ray of light coming from an open door behind it. In the doorway would stand the silhouette figure of a man, either Tennessee Williams or Victor Campbell, the latter being a man who would be speaking at the event about having been given the suitcase by Tennessee Williams for safe keeping some 30 or so years earlier. The artwork was a simple and stark contrast between light and dark for easy, eye-catching viewing--as well as quick completion on my part.

The publicity request required creation and delivery of two 8.5x11 inch printed signs, 40 quarter-page handbills, and one web page banner ad. Once the sign was created, it was easy to copy and scale it down to handbill size, then repurpose portions of it for use as the web banner. Thanks to the simplicity of the design, total production time was right around one hour for all of the collaterals combined.

Library Volunteer Appreciation Luncheon Invitation & Program Designs...Serving Up a Second Helping

Guitar invitation front and back.

Our library really appreciates its library volunteers. Every year, somewhere between 300 and 2500 individuals (depending on how you calculate it) selflessly provide an incredible amount of assistance in hours and effort to extend the library's operational service. Because of this, the library likes to invite volunteers to enjoy an annual luncheon together.

This year, the event planning committee selected a Brazilian guitarist to be featured at the event. From the design side, invitation concepts were designed, approved, printed, and in hand to mail out; program designs were also well into development and on schedule for completion. 

Guitar program / CD insert cover exterior (folds).

Then plans changed. The guitarist was out, and a new, more generic theme based on "the gift of time" was mandated. A scramble ensued to get a replacement speaker, develop a new invitation design concept, then print and deliver to the invitees in as little-past-deadline as possible. There's nothing quite like a change of plans after a significant amount of work has already been done to make things exciting, is there? Well, these things happen on occasion, so you just have to roll with it and hope things will work out better next time around.

Guitar program / CD insert cover interior (when opened).

So, what started out as one design concept for a volunteer appreciation luncheon, turned into two. And why not? We can say that our library loves our volunteers twice as much. Well, almost. We'll give them face time but not Brazilian music.

Clock invitation front and back.

Both designs utilized domain free photography which I modified to suit the theme. The guitar image colour was intensified by saturating it in Photoshop; text, a library logo, music note clip art, and additional photo images of utensils were added to make the guitar opening look like a table place setting. For the blue clock, its hands were topped off with the very same fork and spoon images used from the guitar concept to equally give reference to the meal aspect of the event. The final blue clock image was selected from a total of 24 preliminary designs urgently created within a few hours after the announcement that plans had changed from one theme to another.

The initial guitar concept included quarter page invitations and a program that would double as an insert into a music CD case which would also include a music CD from the guitarist. Opening the case would display the program event schedule on the flip side of that outer-facing guitar image cover. Pulling the insert out and opening it would then reveal names of all the companies that donated gifts to be raffled away to lucky prize winners at the luncheon. The music CD was going to look pretty cool. But I regress on the magnificence of what could have been.

Clock program front and back.

By comparison, the clock concept version utilized a simple front and back quarter page design for invitations, half page design for the program. Table markers based on the design were also made, folding an 8-1/2 x 11 inch sheet into a tall, 11 inch triangle pylon and set upright on tables to indicate seating table seating assignments. It wasn't nearly as exciting as the guitar concept, but hey, by then it was all about getting things done in time which I'm sure everyone appreciated.

TOTAL ITEMS:
300 Guitar Invitations (unused)
300 Clock Invitations
200 Clock Programs
24 Table Markers

Library Graphic Design Year In Review 2012

The image to the right is a photo that I have had pinned to my desk bulletin board for the past two years. I think it is an incredible shot. It leaves me with a whole host of questions though, such as why are all those chairs there?; how did they get them all stacked up like that?; what are they going to do with them?; is there no fire code for that alleyway?; and…has any of it ever toppled out into the street and buried an innocent pedestrian? 

The image also illustrates a certain sentiment I have about the volume of work I create as a designer for my library district. Just look at that volume. Those chairs could be my projects (although I wouldn't let them all clog up the alleyway like that). And look at that tiny man down below. That could be me. Nevertheless, whatever is going to be done with those chairs, that sure is a glut of work to do...much like my work! Fortunately, we have a much more orderly project request process (when people use it) to provide ample time for the work to be done. Don't get me wrong, I love what I do. But often, I feel like my workload looks a lot like that unruly pile of chairs above.

It has been quite a year for my library and for me as a designer for them. And it has been a privilege for me to help promote my community's library system of 12 libraries. I feel they provide a tremendous resource to our community through their range of events and services. As the sole designer for our library district, I feel I am also a tremendous resource to my library by providing a range of design services at a significant quality and performance level to them as well.

For example, take the following numbers into consideration for 2012: 

Total 54 annual work weeks, roughly 250 total annual working days or 2000 hours.
Total Design Projects (January through 14 December): 766. 
That's up from 679 in FY2011 and FY384 in 2010…roughly 1 project completed every 2.61 hours every day. 

And although I am not a "printer," here is some additional volume:
Total In-House Printing: 28,942 project pages / impressions, many trimmed and some folded by hand afterwards.
Total External Vendor Printing: 80,000 pages.
Grand Total Printing: 108,942 pages / impressions.

1 Designer.

Happy New Year, and here's to seeing how all those chairs will stack up for us all in 2013. (I already have 43 projects due in January that I've worked on—and its not even January 1 yet!).