Bookmobile Rebranding Campaign Designs

Roadside directional yard sign displays the rebranded identity logotype treatment

Two PSA ads (top,
middle), and print ad

In May of 2013, our library's Outreach department asked the Public Relations and Marketing department to help them explore ways in which that the library could increase community awareness of its Bookmobile service and in turn increase attendance at the locations where the two Bookmobiles stopped throughout Alachua County in Florida.

The Outreach department originally asked for the rebranding campaign to be delivered in 30 days, but as a single-person design department that produces between 60 to 130 per month for the library district, I had to tell them that wasn't feasible. They wouldn't even have written their survey and received any results back by then anyway. So it was suggested we develop the campaign over the summer months and see if everyone was ready by start of the school year in September. In the end, even though the design component of the campaign was ready for roll-out by September, the official roll-out held off until the first of December.

The outcome of our planning resulted in developing a survey staff could use to receive essential feedback back from patrons; another outcome was for the Creative department to re-envision and develop an entirely new visual identity and set of communication collaterals the Bookmobile could use to promote itself. 

Half page size
schedule handout

For creative development, I first identified a thematic direction I wanted to explore: using a "road sign" style of presentation for the identity of the Bookmobile to strengthen its connection between the service and where one would associate seeing it—out on the road. A colour palette, typographical style, and shapes consistent with roadway signage would be used. To me, the choice seemed completely natural and obvious to pursue. We allowed time during the summer for surveys to return in order to provide feedback on patron's current awareness of the Bookmobile services and what additional ways the service could be tailored to met their needs. Meanwhile, I moved forward to develop a new visual identity and strategy for communications materials.

I developed a logotype for "The Bookmobile" that would become the new brand identity of the service. It would use bold italic white lettering on a green background that would include a directional arrow of the same green background colour. The arrow stem would horizontally bisect through the center of some of the letters, allowing its arrowhead to prominently terminate in the center of the "o" of the "mobile" portion. So in essence, the italic logotype with the bisecting arrow would reinforce the connotation that books were on the move, going mobile.

Half page handout

To help viewers of the logotype better make the connection between it and the library, I next wrote a tagline to be included under the logotype that would need to be consistently worded as an integral part of the identity: "We're driven to bring you the Library!" In this way, "book" would make the connection to "library" while "driven" connected to "mobile." I thought it not only clever, but essential to weave in as much literal and subliminal interconnectivity as possible into the branded logotype. Each component of the logotype would work to strengthen and reinforce the whole by further defining it. To accommodate for different presentations of the identity when necessary, three basic variations of the identity would be utilized: "The Bookmobile" logotype both with and without the tagline, and also a version of the logotype with a heavily outlined profile view photo of the Bookmobile positioned over the logotype lockup.

8.5x11 inch sign style

To further link the Bookmobile service to its mobile environment, online and print advertisements as well as other collaterals such as physical signs posted both inside and out of the Bookmobile would all utilize the appearance of roadway signage. I identified and developed three different themed channels to speak to: 1) target audiences such as students, seniors, families; 2) service attributes that could play off of vehicle signage language such as the deliver, reserved, accelerate; and 3) lifestyle issues such as gasoline and financial savings, time and locality convenience.

Mock-up of a key chain that
was actually manufactured.

Advertising and signage language was written both to provide essential factual information as well as to draw from their theme connections. Clever and playful wording was also infused into the messages in an effort to not only identify essential factual information but also to interject a small dose of personality into it. In the end, a few final signs were selected from each channel, knowing that future signs could potentially tap into any of the themed channels as needed based on what issue or audience they wanted to address. Two different sizes of each sign design were created: full page 8.5x11 versions for posting on walls and half page versions for handing out to the public as leaflets.

Interior sign for librarian desk
pass-through area

A few additional promotional pieces were developed to further assist in the rebranding awareness campaign: roadside yard signs that directed traffic to the Bookmobile stops; a sandwich board signs to be placed outside the vehicles that incorporated the new identity at the top and left open space below for changeable event-specific posters and information; vinyl adhesive labels applied on the Bookmobile truck doors; a key chain sporting the new Bookmobile identity; bumper stickers that could be displayed either on the Bookmobile and / or on private passenger vehicles that wanted to promote awareness of the service. 

Web site banner ad

The only thing that couldn't be altered at this time was the vehicle wrap that would have to wait until its material life span ended and need replacement. But once that time came, a new design would be developed and implemented which would then also be applied to the other associated identity elements.

Creative for bumper sticker
styled bookmarks
included over 30 choices. The
final single one chosen is
the one at bottom.

The complete campaign included creation of the following collaterals (and number printed):

Roadside directional 24x19 inch yard signs (3 versions, 6 each)

PSAs (2 versions, each used)

Print ad (1)

Sandwich board top 23.5x12 inch signs (4)

Half page schedule handbills (100)

Half page promotional handbills (4 versions, 100 each)

8.5 x 11 inch signs (25 created, 4 versions used, 50 each)

Key chain 3x.875 inch pad (250 manufactured by outside vendor)

Interior Bookmobile signs (4 created, 0 used)
Interior Bookmobile shelf collection signs (22 versions, 0 used)

Web ad banners (2 versions)
Vehicle cab door 25.5x8 inch adhesive signs (4)

Bookmarks (30 developed; 100 of 1 printed)
Bookmobile staff business card (1 version, unused)

Library Newsletter, THINK... Winter 2013

Television PSA appears on a local station channel to promote the library.

The library's free winter newsletter issue of THINK... arrived in branches just in time for the new year. This issue covers current news and over 1,075 scheduled events from January through March. Online copies are also available on the library's website, www.aclib.us. The print edition of 2,500 copies is delivered not only to all library branch locations but also to select non-library businesses to extend its reach further into the community.

The issue's use of a puzzle for a visual theme is a subtle nod toward the library's ability to bring a wide range of entertaining topics and community services together with the library to create events and programs that connect with and serve the interests of a diverse public.

A downloadable .pdf of the newsletter can be found here: http://aclib.us/files/2013_docs/THINKWinter2013.pdf .

Cover of the winter issue of THINK....

Online blog icon.

Marketing Designs for Library Speaker Series: Life Skills for Teens

An 11x8.5 inch sign initiates the first of a series of teen oriented events.

Librarians from one of our youth services departments wanted to hold a series of events intended to help educate teens about important life skills. While I was being briefed to create publicity materials for the first event I learned the plan was to have more than one event for this purpose, so I proposed developing an identity mark for the entire series. This way each individual event could be easily recognized as part of a larger program—the series of events. 

Black/white and colour service marks were the first element to be made.

With an agreement to first create a service mark, I developed a small, colourful logo that incorporated gears into it to impart the idea of an important component of something greater that works, plus a symbol in the center of one of the gears to impart the idea of "adding" skills. These are of course, small, subtle design elements. So, a tagline was added underneath to further support the visual mark. The entire mark and tagline would appear on all related programs within the series. In the event that the series logo might need to be reproduced in black and white, a version of that was made as well. 

Quarter page handbills print four-up to a page prior to trimming.

As for materials for the first event, "Show Me The Money," I sourced photographic images of piles of scattered money and tried a couple out as background images/decorative borders. I didn't feel they had much visual impact or recognition as bills, however, so I chose a more identifiable, graphic detail element from a single dollar bill instead. Liking what I saw, I used that image as the background and matched event headline text to the bill ink colour. 

I kept descriptive and display text within our corporate standards fonts of Arial and Garamond. The original lengthy event description text I chopped down to a simple, impactful statement. Essential time, date, location information, a website address for more information, and the corporate branding rounded out the required elements.

Web ad as seen on the library website home page.

Projects included:

1 Program series identity mark, 

colour and b/w versions

200 Quarter page handbills

20 11x8.5 inch signs

1 Web page banner

A web ad for the library home page boils visual information down.
Additional information can be provided underneath in caption text.

Library Grand [Re-]Opening Invitation & Program Marketing Designs

Event program front.

My how time flies. Back in late June through September our Headquarters library was constructing a room inside our largest open public space where most of our collections are. The room was to become a "quiet reading room" and was in response to patron comments asking for such a space. 

The library wanted to hold a grand opening to celebrate the room's completion and I was tasked with the creation of an invitation to mail out two weeks prior to the event as well as a program for the day of the event. That was fine, but by the time design development needed to take place in order to be completed in time to send invitations out, the room construction was still unfinished and the furniture that had been ordered for it still had yet to arrive. 

I was also informed that the game plan had changed; the event would now not only be for the grand opening of the quiet reading room, but would also incorporate a grand "re-opening" of the third and main floor of the library since a variety of "sprucing up projects" had also taken place on the floor, such as recarpeting, repainting the interior walls, refurnishing with new patron computer stations, and the like.

Event program back.

There was a small technicality I couldn't get out of my head, however. The library never actually closed for renovations or redecorating, so calling it a "re-opening" seemed like a bit of a misnomer to me. Nevertheless, that is what they wanted to bill it as. I decided to place the "re-" in brackets to signify their relevance and as an alternative to using quote or parentheses marks. I also added colour the lettering to bring emphasis to and differentiate it from the "grand opening" segment of the event title to call attention to what the "re-" actually referred to: the rededication of old spaces recently "refreshed, renewed, revealed" as opposed to the entirely new quiet reading room.

I took photos of the room while it was being constructed on a couple of different occasions, but it invariably had a variety of construction gear and/or transient shelving temporarily stored in the room no matter when I came. By itself, the room also wasn't much to look at no matter what angle I showed it at, so, without a finished room nor any interior decor to use for identifiable imagery on the invitation and program, I looked for other options. 

I began work developing a blue print concept, but I considered this concept too freshly similar to a grand opening we had for one of our new branch librares only nine months earlier. It also looked too unsophisticated for what I would rather show. I preferred instead to investigate other opportunities and settled on some of the existing, unique architectural and interior furnishing features of the building. 

Invitation front.

Invitation back.

I started by taking photos of some nice, large dome lights, with the notion of using the old tried-and-true "the lights are on/we're open for business" approach. I also shot a selection of the library's large wooden ceiling beams used throughout the large public space. Finally, I set my sights on the centerpiece of these beams that criss-crossed high overhead in the large room. The structure was so tall that to get a full length shot of it would require me to stand very far away—thus making the structure very tiny in larger photo—or, to take a shot of it at an angle where I could foreshorten the entire view of it. I ended up laying on my back on the floor near its base, shooting up at it and the skylights that shined down onto it from above to capture a wonderful illumination from the very early morning light. The actual light was much darker than seen on the final image; thanks to the miracle of photoshop I was able to significantly lighten and adjust image contrast globally to bring out the warm hues of the wood tones without completely blowing out details in the light fixture or skylight areas.

The long vertical orientation of the photo would work perfect for the half page layout I would use for the program, but wouldn't work for the invitation in its entirety, so I took the shot with that in mind so I could use a detailed portion of the overall image that focused on a large lighting fixture as a key feature, playing on the "light on/we're open for business" concept mentioned above. Once I had the detail image where I wanted it on the invitation, I duplicated a very small portion of the larger image and laid it overtop part of the letter "P" to show the rod—which supported the light fixture—pass through the hole of the letter form. I also came up with a tagline to clarify why the "'RE-" was highlighted in a different colour than the white lettering (it used a pale tan taken from the nearby wood). "A re-dedication" was really what I would have considered the event, if it weren't for the brand new quiet reading room component. The event was really a blend of dedicating two featured aspects: the new room as part of a renovation, and the newly refreshed areas in the same public space. Either way, I was bringing attention to the "re-" aspect of the overall effort.

A last few items helped to assist promote the event. These included a home website page banner, a 23x34 inch poster that would be installed into a freestanding post, and the rendering of a new floor plan map that identified locations of the collections that could be found on that floor. Each invitation and program were individually trimmed out by hand to ensure no unprinted white paper excess appeared around the image area.

A new floor plan was created by scanning an old
floor plan, then recreating it by redrawing all the
exterior walls and a few select interior ones.

In all, the project tally included:
235 Invitations
75 Programs
100 Floor plan maps
1 Freestanding 23x24 inch lobby poster
1 Web 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.

Too Much Language, Too Little Space? What You Can Do.

8.5x11 inch promotional sign

It should come as no surprise that writers love words, illustrators and photographers love images, and designers love organizing. It is when those interests intersect with each other that designers play the part of visual communication mediators. There is no mistaking that a written message is important, but when language is excessive, it leaves little room left for making a visual promotional piece eye catching to the casual observer whose attention you want to capture. As those sayings go: "when everything is important, nothing is important." And "when everything shouts, the message is lost in the noise." (I just made up that second one, but it sounds good, right?).

Sometimes when language crowds out all the space and there is simply no room left for images, the only solution left is to make the words speak for themselves...by giving them the personality and design features required to sell the piece. If they want all the glory, make 'em work for it! A good example of this idea is an 8.5x11 inch sign and a quarter page handbill used to advertise a library event that celebrated both the end of summer and the beginning of the school year.

The handbill replicated the 8.5x11 inch sign--4 handbills per page.

Because there was so much text, I knew right off the bat that I would want a condensed ("squeezed") typeface because it was going to need about as much "squeezing" as it could in order to fit it all in. I also wanted the text to have a little more character than a simple condensed or compressed font, so I chose something that had a distressed or "roughened" appearance (to give it a more casual appearance, not to impart that returning to school creates distress!). 

I also wanted the collective text to create a solid visual block that conformed to the dimension of the promotional piece, so I altered the point size of various word combinations until I could get them to work in justified right/left arrangements. Alternating the text colours helped to provide visual diversity within the message and to call out more important aspects of it as well. 

Finally, after all the type styling, I slipped a photo of a bright sun with its rays bursting through the leaves of a shadowed Florida palm tree behind the text to give it one last brilliant punch of colour. A word of caution: you don't want your text to become illegible due to the choice of your background image. Whether it be a photo, illustration, or other graphic image, be sure that your background does not make your text difficult to read. Generally, the simpler the image is, and a colouration different from your text helps to reduce difficulty reading. Knowing what your reader's distance will be from the image is also comes into play. For instance if you look at my handbills at the size they are on screen, you may have difficulty reading the white text and anything smaller than it to. This can emulate what seeing a sign would be like from a distance. 

Since the handbill is intended to be read at less than arm's length, this shouldn't become an issue for most people. And the 8.5x11 inch sign is intended to be seen from a relatively short distance as well. The key things work at varying sizes to draw you in a little at a time: the colour catches your eye, the event name instantly tells you what it is about, and the text gets smaller from there in order to its importance in the reading hierarchy.

So in the end, all the elements came together to create an eye-catching presentation. Its natural: sometimes the yin speaks louder, sometimes the yan. Just squeeze and massage your content, and as long as all elements get their day in the sun, everyone will be happy. =)

Library Volunteer Appreciation Luncheon Invitation & Program 2012 Marketing Designs

Volunteer Appreciation Luncheon invitation front / back resembled a seed packet.

Event program front/ back continued the design theme.

The theme for the Alachua County Library District's 2012 volunteer appreciation luncheon centered on growing, and with an environmental horticulture agent as its featured guest speaker, I worked on the concept of promotional collaterals related to seed packet design. 


I submitted about 15 designs for consideration, and from that, developed a final design that would become the basis for applying to 300 invitations, 200 programs, 21 table marker signs, and 21 florist appreciation table tents. 


The design incorporated use of a public domain flower photo, self generated and vector clip art banners and seal, and a detail portion of a commonly used watercolour image of the Headquarters Library. A brand logo finished off two of the design elements. And...Clever Alert! ...in an effort to further resemble a seed packet, I also included a little faux seed packet language of my own, such as my "Latin" version of "volunteerus appreciatus luncheonata" and a small descriptive paragraph on the back of the invitation about this particular "variety" of volunteer. 

Triangular vertical standing table markers
indicated seating arrangements.

I would have liked the invitation to be an actual seed packet, but unfortunately the costing was prohibitive. Instead, the quarter page invitation was placed into an envelope along with a small seed packet that contained a variety of seeds.


Each promotional item was printed on 8.5x11 inch 110lb white card stock, then hand trimmed to size. Table tents and markers were folded for display.


Since real estate on the dining tables is always a premium, I created table markers that folded to form vertical standing triangle columns. The markers indicated which branch or organizational members sat at the various tables, attended by over 160 people.

Table tent front / back acknowledged the florist arrangements.

Small table tents a little larger than business cards were used to acknowledge the florist that donated the table floral arrangements.