Library Author Series Integrated Promotional Marketing Designs

Above: speaker podium signage helped to reinforce recognition and recall of the program series identity.

Project: Alachua County Library District Author Series Identity and Promotional Materials.

Brief: Establish a visual identity mark and develop integrated print and digital media marketing collaterals to promote the library's newly created speaker engagement series. 

Above: one of the seven 8.5x11 & 21x28 inch author posters.

Required collaterals (and printed quantities):
Series logo, with element variations and formats in both colour and black/white (8)
14x8.5 inch gatefold brochure (2,000)
Library website blog icon (1)
Library website banner ad, 
one per speaker (7)
Newspaper print ad, one per speaker (7)
Magazine print ad for entire series (1)
17.5x18.25 inch speaker podium sign (1)
45x45 inch library poster (1) with
one 17x11 inch author poster insert
per speaker (7)
11x17 inch mini-poster (2)
8.5x11 inch mini-posters (40 per speaker)
8.5x11 inch mini-poster for 3 speakers  
(1 .pdf for branch printing)
5.5x8.5 inch half page handbill for Steve Berry event (1 .pdf for branch printing)
21x28 inch library poster, 
(7 for each speaker)
14x8.5 inch author poster inserts (1) 
Two-sided 2.5x8.5 inch bookmarks, 
(one per speaker, in various quantities from 300 printed in-house to 1,250 printed by vendor)
Public Service Announcement broadcast media ad, one per speaker (7)
Library newsletter cover and two-page layout design (3 pages, 2,750 printed copies)
Library newsletter website blog icon (1) 
Library newsletter cover website image (1)

Top: library one of seven individual author website banner ads. Bottom, left to right: library website author series blog icon, THINK... newsletter cover library website icon, THINK... newsletter library website blog icon.

Above: 45x45 inch poster with 17x11 inch author bio insert.

Top: front and back of 14x8.5 inch gatefold brochure. Middle: THINK... newsletter cover and interior pages. Bottom: magazine print ad, author bio insert (same design for both 17x11 inch and 14.8.5 inch inserts), and front/back of bookmark concept design.

Above: TV broadcast media public service announcement.

Above: one of seven individual author TV broadcast media public service announcements.

Above: all seven bookmark fronts plus common back. Greater emphasis was placed on listing complete book titles over author and book cover photos.

One of seven newspaper print ads.

Three smaller sized newspaper print ads.

8.5x11 inch mini-poster of three speakers.

5.5x8.5 inch half page handbill for individual speaker.

Integrated POP Marketing Signage Designed to Raise Literacy Office Awareness, Donations, and to Thank Community

The desire to generate a little fundraising turned into an opportunity to thank the commuity for their support. This design for a 7x5 inch laminated coutertop jug label paved the way.

Vertical banner.

The Alachua County Library District Literacy Office approached me to develop marketing materials that could bring attention to their literacy efforts and to assist in fundraising. The items would be used during book sale events at the local Friends of the Library book house. The initial brief asked me to explore solutions for a free-standing dimensional floor display to promote the Literacy Office, and to design adhesive labels for donation jugs that would be placed on point-of-purchase counter tops to ask for spare change. 

A few months earlier, I had provided design services to rebrand the ACLD Literacy Office, ( http://librarygraphicdesign.blogspot.com/2014/08/integrated-library-literacy-collateral.html ) so I was fortunate to already have established design standards I could use to extend to this project. I also had photos taken from previous book sale events to refer to and used these to assess the book house retail environment space while I generated ideas about presentation opportunities. 

I knew from past experience that the book sale environment was a pretty chaotic place; crowded wall-to-wall with people and book shelving. At the check-out area, a long, stagnate line of customers would often form which would provide a perfect location to get and hold their attention, but sight lines would be blocked from around shoulder height down to the floor. I knew that the best bet for catching people's eyes would have to have visuals be at least waist-height and higher, so I developed and presented an eight foot free-standing floor display concept in the shape of an open book that would require construction with wooden building materials, PVC piping and fabric, or other solutions. I also presented a series of mid- and large-format vinyl wall-mounted and beam-suspended banners that were sure to not be overlooked. To help demonstrate how effective the banners would appear, I photoshoppped the concept banners into the existing event photos for a before-and-after comparison.

Proposed, canceled floor display.

During my on-site visit to the Friends of the Library book house, my floor display concept was presented and well-received, but a second concept was put forth by the Friends that they were willing to explore and construct themselves: a stack of books piled up neatly, high enough to become a waist-high cube of books. The top surface could be then used to set up additional books and marketing materials. We all thought it a plausible idea and encouraged Friends of the Library volunteers to develop that. A large, two-sided sandwich board was also  offered at that time to use for additional marketing, so I added that to my list of banners to design for and during subsequent meetings presented concepts that utilized the banner design styling.

Before-and-after proposed banner solutions.

After all the initial concept and design production was completed, a vendor quote for producing the vinyl banners was acquired then presented for client approval. Unfortunately, financing for vendor-provided materials became an issue for the library, so I was asked to print and laminate as many of the smaller items in-house as I could for use at the event. Despite not using the largest, most prominent banners, the remaining smaller scale banners and donation jug labels were still beneficial for raising Literacy Office awareness and advocating for additional funding.

Left: available sandwich board. Middle two: concept sign designs for sandwich board use. Right: diagram indicating areas needed to cut out so that existing hooks on sandwich board could slide through. 

Projects designed (and delivered or canceled):

138x36 inch Banner / Literacy Office (canceled after development)
138x36 inch Banner / FOL (canceled after development)
138x36 inch Banner / ACLD (canceled after development)
20x40 Literacy Office Banner, Laminated and Mounted on Foam Core Board (2)
29x40 inch Sandwich Board Literacy Office Sign (1)
29x40 inch Sandwich Board Friends of the Library Sign (1)
7x5 inch Laminated Literacy Office Donation Jug Labels (14)

Three 138x36 inch vinyl banners not fabricated for use after design development.

Promotional Marketing Design for Library Speaker Event: Author Bill DeYoung

45x45 inch large format display poster.

One of two print advertisements.

Author Bill DeYoung provided two good quality images of himself and his book cover for use in promoting his author event at the Alachua County Library District in January. 

By "good quality" I mean sufficient for a decent print reproduction quality at the size the images are would be seen. Image quality is determined by two factors: the resolution of the image (for example, 72 pixels per inch or "72ppi" is sufficient for digital media reproduction but not printed documents, whereas printed documents reproduce better at higher levels such as 300 dots per inch or "dpi"; a suitable number is dependent on the scale you might adjust the original sized image to).

In DeYoung's case, both his book and headshot images were low resolution 72ppi images, but the dimensions were 11x16.6 inches and 6.6x10 inches, which allowed them to be scaled up larger without significant noticeable image degradation for the size I wanted to increase them to. A third image of the bridge I used in the web banner was also a higher quality image at 7x3 inches, 96ppi. The higher quality of image sizes ensured a higher quality visual image for each promotional piece created.

An 8.5x11 inch page provided 
space enough for four handbills.

Promotional materials created for this author event included:

One 45x45 inch large format display poster

One website banner ad

Two newspaper print advertisements

100 quarter page handbills for Headquarters Library

100 quarter page handbills for two libraries

Library website page banner ad.

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.

FOL Appreciation Week Diorama Display Design

From concept to completion: a cardboard box is transformed into a classic cinema.

Top: mapping out the surface coverage.
Bottom: the illuminated movie screen.

My earlier post covering creative work done for the National Friends of the Library Appreciation Week 2012 touched briefly on a diorama display. Due to its uniqueness, I thought it deserved a closer look, so here's my nod to a project that doesn't come along every day...a three dimensional diorama from the library technical services department that went on display at an event to thank our Friends of the Library organization. 

Librarian Linda Norris came to me with an idea to create a small tabletop display. She wanted to convert a medium sized cardboard box into a small movie theater and asked if I could help her with the creation of it. I thought it was a fun and unique project to add to the many other projects our branch libraries were using to thank the FOL group. While discussing the concept, I sketched out a basic rough of what I understood would be our goal: to find images we could use to cover the box interior and exterior surfaces, and to develop presentation frames on the outside flaps that could contain old DVDs to act as movie poster announcements for coming attractions. 

Three interior images include
(top) installation of large prints
onto wall and floor surfaces;
(middle) a red carpet made of
felt laid overtop a marbled
lobby floor image; (bottom) a
thick red string and cotter pins
set into a foam core board
wrapped with black paper served
as a rope barrier for crowd control. 

Linda provided a black and white printed image of vintage movie-goers wearing 3D glasses which I scanned, then colourized the lenses to be magenta and cyan. Another image of theatre seating I used to type faux versions of commonly over-used critic statements I modified to refer to the library's affections for the FOL. The rest of the wall and floor images I sourced for online, then printed to size using our office copier and large format printer. To give the diorama a little more life and to help identify what library department was giving their thanks, I suggested Linda recruit some of her colleagues to have their photos taken so we could use them as theatre visitors coming to see the show. She liked that idea, so I photographed them in a variety of casual poses and printed them at a scale I thought would be favourable to the boxed environment (roughly 9 to 10 inches each).

Once I had all the surface photos printed to size, the first thing I did was to lay what would be the movie scree/red curtain image on the back side of the box to mark with a stick pin where the corners of the white movie screen would be. Afterwards, I cut that portion of the box away to leave a hole in the bottom of the box. This would enable me to lay the screen/curtain image on the inside back wall of the box so that later we could place a flashlight behind the box to project a light onto the paper covering the hole to illuminate the screen. Once that image was secured into the box, the rest of the box wall and floor images were quickly attached using a few short pulls of double stick tape.

Top left: video DVDs were sandwiched between a 
yellow background mounted on cardboard backing 
and a cardboard frame that used a layer of 
transparent laminator film to act as side panels 
advertising some of the library's movie selection.

Meanwhile, Linda fashioned a rope line using a thick red length of cord and cotter pins, then wrapped a length of cardboard with black paper to sink the pins into so they could stand upright. After that was complete, she worked on cutting out and colouring with a black marker two cardboard poster "frames" to lay on top of printed images stating "Coming Soon" and "Now Showing." Between the paper images and the frames, she tacked down with double stick tape a selection of movie DVDs and a layer of laminator film that I had run through the laminator to make hard. The film would act as the "window" for each of the poster frames. Next, a strip of felt fabric was cut and laid on the bottom marble tile "lobby floor" flap to act as a red carpet runway. As a finishing touch to the now classically inspired movie house, a chandelier was created by combining a selection of jewelry and other mixed media objects donated by other staff members.

While Linda was working out all those details, I was busy trimming out the figurines, double stick taping them to poster board, and cutting out a square of foam core board for each to stand on. This part presented a challenge for us, because the figurines stood tall enough to become top-heavy and tip over when standing them up on foam core board slabs. Eventually, Linda was able to get a few sheets of flat plastic that I broke down to size and double stick taped to the base of the foam core boards to add weight to the base so the figurines wouldn't tip over any longer. I cut a slit into the foam core board base and tucked in a tab of excess poster board left remaining under the feet of the figurines when they were cut out. I added a small movie ticket to the hand of each figurine, taped a couple of movie posters to the sides of the exterior walls, and considered it finished!

Audience creation involved a
photo shoot of staff, printing at a
reduced size, trimming out
silhouettes, and fabricating a
base to stand the figurines with.

Tickets in the hands of movie-goers, an 
illuminated movie screen, and an old poster 
curling away from the wall show how some of 
the small details came together to create a 
unique environment for the diorama display.

National Friends of the Library Celebration 2012 Marketing Designs

Above diagram shows a large range of collaterals used to promote the celebration.
Descriptions of numbered itemization portion appears at end of this blog entry.

The ALA collaterals sold for promotional purposes.

October 21-27 marks the nationally celebrated Friends of the Library Appreciation Week. The American Library Association describes it as: "Friends of Libraries groups have their very own national week of celebration! ALTAFF will coordinate the seventh annual National Friends of Libraries Week Oct. 21-27, 2012. The celebration offers a two-fold opportunity to celebrate Friends. Use the time to creatively promote your group in the community, to raise awareness, and to promote membership. This is also an excellent opportunity for your library and Board of Trustees to recognize the Friends for their help and support of the library."  You can read more about the celebration here: http://www.ala.org/united/events_conferences/folweek.

Event identity mark.

The ALA offered libraries nation-wide the opportunity to purchase a package of pre-designed promotional marketing materials for libraries to use to promote the national celebration. For the Alachua County Library District, however, the decision was made to develop their own in order to focus more intimately on its own local FOL group. This would require an entirely different design direction.

The first task was to develop an identity mark for the celebration. The design elements of the mark would become  the base design that would drive additional works required for communications and promotion. I had only a couple of hours to explore potential solutions because we already knew we wanted to order pens and wearable buttons to pass out as souvenirs. Production time would take about two weeks and we were already up against that deadline.

An 8.5x11 inch sign demonstrates the primary design
elements used throughout the promotional campaign.

My initial concept was influenced by the notion that this was a national American celebration, so naturally I would be looking to develop something with a red, white, and blue sensibility to it. Additionally, the fact that a presidential election was in high gear at this same time also played into my thinking. I was inspired by the classic "I LIKE IKE" convention button and created one that read "I LIKE FOL." Everything about the button—including the typography— looked the same except the letters were changed. 

Unfortunately, I was asked to come up with a new concept, so, faced with the design of a button first that had content requirements of using our local Friends of the Library logo along with the phrase "Celebrate Our Friends of the Library with Us!" I placed the existing FOL logo under a circular arch that went from one side of the tree to the other. Reversed out of the arch was the required phrase, and as as the arching circle continued under the tree, I added three hearts to fill in the empty space below the FOL logo. This design was accepted and became the base identity that would be applied to other marketing collaterals.

A 45x45 inch large format display poster is flanked by secondary
support visuals of silhouette books and faux polaroids.

Two other pieces needed to be quickly made: an 8.5x11 and a 11x17 sign that would contain varying messages depending on their use. I needed another visual element to compliment the approved identity. I remembered I had used the silhouette of an open book on monthly event calendars for a while, but found the curve of the pages not to my liking, so I created a new book silhouette and used that shape to contain reversed out text of the required messages. 

This silhouette would also become a common design element used on many of the collaterals required to promote the week of celebration, such as decorative elements that contained quotes by famous people, FOL factoids, or library messages.

I wanted the visual appearance of the signs to both have a classic, established quality to them as well as a modern, common quality. To achieve this, I combined an Adobe Garamond italic and small cap style along with an Arial font family mix. 

Requests for primary and support design projects began rolling in. Signs, posters, print and online advertisements, event decorations, certificates, a multi-paged binded presentation booklet, even a slide show. In all, I had over 30 unique items to create within in three weeks—all the while balancing those creations with other promotional projects in the works. The diagram at the top of this blog entry demonstrates the wide range of projects undertaken for this event; a list of those projects are detailed by type and quantity printed at the end of this entry.

Thank you notes and photos of scholarship recipients
were displayed on large format posters as well as
on pages of bound presentation booklets.

Each branch library was supplied with copies of the 8.5x11 and 11x17 inch signs, as well as book silhouettes containing a variety of quotes. They used them in any way they wanted, along with any additional elements they desired to create their own larger posters and bulletin board displays. Photographs of these were then taken to collate together into a bound booklet to be presented to FOL members.

In addition to the library branch display photos, notes of thanks from recipients of scholarships provided by the FOL were also combined together to add pages to the presentation booklet. These same notes, along with photos of the respective recipients were then repurposed into three large posters that would hang on the wall at a midday event at the event for the public and invited guests to attend.

The booklet would also contain photos representing some of the many library projects the FOL supported, as well as a certificate of appreciation. This same certificate would be printed to present to the library's four different FOL organizations, as well as copies made for each branch library to display.

A diorama for Technical Services thanked FOL
 for creating and supporting a popular CD/DVD
movie collection, and in doing so became a
"show stopper" in its own right. 

Perhaps the most ambitious design project was a diorama, conceived by Technical Services Librarian Linda Norris, who envisioned turning a simple card board box into a cinema to highlight her department's appreciation for FOL contributions and support towards creation of the library's very popular movie CD/DVD collection. 

Linda and I worked a few minutes here and there during the next two weeks to fabricate the vision. I started first with sourcing and printing images of brick walls, asphalt, tile floors, theatre screens and curtains, threatre chairs, and scanned/modified a retro photograph of moviegoers wearing 3-D glasses to tape to the surface of the box. Next, a portion of the back of the box was cut away to allow the back image of the movie screen to be illuminated from behind by a flashlight. Old CDs, lamination film, and cardboard "frames" were used to create panels to display the CDs as "Now Showing" and "Coming Soon" attractions. A chandelier was fashioned out of earrings, crowd control ropes were made out of red rope and cotter pins, and even a red carpet over the tile entryway floor added touches of sophistication to the environment. Full height photos of Linda and a few of her colleagues were taken, printed at a reduced scale, taped to poster board, then cut out to become standing figurines that could be placed anywhere around the diorama. And lastly, faux commonly phrased industry quotes and attributions about moviegoing were superimposed over the backs of audience chairs to reflect positive sentiments about the FOL. 

Technical Services Librarian Linda Norris stands with her diorama.

I had been told even before the diorama had left the design department to be viewed by a greater audience that it had become quite the talk of the library among staff members. Even the library director caught a sneak peek of it and suggested that it be set on display somewhere after the FOL Appreciation Event. For everyone who saw it, I hope they all enjoyed it—if not at the October 21 Friends of the Library Appreciation Event, then perhaps wherever the diorama might travel to on its next stop of what could potentially become a tour of show stops all its own.

The Tally (quantity printed):

01. Invitation/Handbill (800) 

02. Bookmark (2,000)

03. 8.5x11 Inch Signs (16)

04. Cake Top Image (1)

05. Event Program (150)

06. Home Page Website Banner Ad (1)

07. 10x10.5 Inch Print Advert (1)

08. 10x10.5 Inch Print Advert Table Top Sign (2)

09. 4x4 Foot Partnership Branch Library Display Poster (1)

10. 21x28 Inch Lobby Poster

11. 48x48 Inch Podium Display Poster (1)

12. Website Blog Icon(1)

13. Wearable 2 Inch Button (1)

14. 7x2 Inch Colour Print Advert (1)

15. 11x17 Inch Signs (14)

16. Presentation Booklet Binder (32 pages each; 

      23 booklets printed in-house, 250 printed via outside vendor)

17. 16x20 Inch Scholarship Thank You Poster (1)

18. Gainesville FOL Certificates (12)

19. Other Municipality FOL Certificates (3)

20. 35x43 Inch Scholarship Thank You Posters (2)

21. 3.25x3.75 Inch Black/White Print Advert (1)

22. Tech Services Cinema Diorama (1 box, 13+ images)

23. 45x45 Inch Headquarters Library Publicity Display Poster (1) 

24. Table Top Wire Decoration Polaroids (8)

25. 8.5x11 Inch Book Silhouette Quotes (5)

26. PowerPoint Slideshow Pages (12)

27. Decorative Book Hang Tags (12)

28. Book Decoration Factoids (144)

Not shown:

Website Blog Page Image (1)

Scholarship Thank You Table Toppers (3)
Writing Pen

Oh, and don't forget that at the same time all this was being done, I was also working on an additional 57 projects from October 1 to October 19!