New Signage Design for Children's Library Collection

A newly designed signage system created for the children's collection provided solutions to serve multiple interests.

New room furnishings provided the
inspiration for a more colourful
signage system that could compliment it.

During the summer of 2013, the children's level of the Alachua County Library District's Headquarters Library was renovated. The renovation included new furniture, carpeting, lighting and ceiling panels, book shelving, and decorative wooden sculptural elements based on popular children's book characters placed on a wall and surrounding floor columns. The renovation also brought with it a brighter, more vibrant palette of colours that was applied to walls, columns, floors, and seating. 

With all the major refurbishing complete, a new set of signage was desired to update the appearance of the collections as well. An audit determined that signs would be needed for tops of bookshelves, bookshelf end panels, walls, and suspended from the ceiling. 

In the past, this library's bookshelf end panel signs were simply pieces of 8.5x11 inch copier paper printed with a range of appropriate call numbers--sometimes coupled with a symbolic illustration included on the sign, sometimes not--then taped into their location. The initial directive for me was to do something along similar lines. As I began sourcing for images to be used with bookshelf signs, I found plenty of examples I thought looked good either stylistically or thematically, but 1) the library didn't have image rights to reuse them, and 2) when viewing them all together, I came to the conclusion that I would need to re-illustrate them in order to achieve a consistent, uniform style. So for the images I liked best, I drew over them to simplify them as line drawings.

Signs are itemized in a signage intent document so that all individuals
involved in the process have an opportunity to review the design
intent and schedule of deliverables prior to RFP and eventual fabrication.

Because most surfaces in the library are angular in shape, I wanted to explore ways to counteract that with signs that featured more organic shapes. I was also eager to explore ways to integrate the new, vibrant room colours into the sign designs as well. So taking my cue from the new colour palette, I arranged the collection numbers into circles, then placed the circles partially into a larger, central circle that featured the theme image of each bookshelf aisle series. I offset the placement of the two smaller text circles so that they followed the convention of reading left-to-right and top-to-bottom. This also helped to avoid a symmetrical and linear arrangement of the three circles. The overall arrangement resulted in what I ended up referring to as a "triple circle" sign. 

The solution appeared to work well, so I applied it to the rest of the bookshelf end panel signs. After seeing the colour selections for the numbered circles, I decided I should also maintain a consistency in the way colour would be used there too. So, for example, the 800-900s circle portion of a sign should remain the same when seen on any another sign. 

In addition to the triple-circle signs, three different single-circle signs were also created: large 10-3/4 inch signs--one for magazines/audio tapes, and one for early readers; a set of six inch circles that displayed alphabetical letters for the picture book collection; and a single six inch circle sign for the ending numerical range of the triple-circle series.

Placement of bookshelf top paper 
sign for on-site testing and review.

For shelf top and large area ceiling signs, a full circle would take up too much room, so I flattened circles into ovals and placed collection section names into those shapes. The tops of the ceiling signs and bottoms of shelf top signs would have to be flat so they could run parallel to the surface they would be attached to, so I designed a cut to begin at a reasonable distance from the sides of the sign lettering. 

Because ceiling signs would need to be seen from two directions, two different 1/8 inch acrylic signs would need to be made, then glued back-to-back. Together as one unit, the new ceiling signs would make use of the same hardware of hooks and chains used to suspend the old signs. 

Back of bookshelf top sign shows 

construction of "L" brace.

For shelf-top signs, they would need to lean back slightly so they wouldn't tip over. I wasn't certain if the acrylic could bend into an "L" shape or not, so I first designed it that way, but  deferred to my external sign vendor for his advice. He suggested that it would be easier to create an "L" shaped brace made of another material, then glue it to the back of the sign for support.

Before final signs were ordered and fabricated, I printed out all but the ceiling-mounted signs to use for a few months on location as a field test. This way, I could see if the proposed designs were adequate in size, work well for public navigation, and be aesthetically pleasing. Feedback from both youth services staff and patrons were overwhelmingly positive, so the concept was approved and I moved forward to work with the sign vendor on securing price quotes, working out technical aspects of the fabrication process, and creation of final digital files.

Cutting out full-scale paper prints for on-site testing.

On-site testing of paper signs temporarily placed to check for 

aesthetic value, proper sizing, and sufficient public navigation issues. 
You can see one of the older signs still in use hanging above the bookshelves.

On-site field testing of paper signs 

served their purpose but were by no

means intended to be permanent.

The design for the entire new signage system called for using 1/8 inch acrylic with a printed colour vinyl backing. Using a clear acrylic would allow light to enter the face of the sign and illuminate the brightly coloured vinyl print affixed to the back, making the colour even more vibrant. Wall and bookshelf mounted signs would use 3M double sided tape to adhere the sign to its location; the ceiling signs made use of the existing hook and chain hardware used to support the previous signs. 

The complete signage project included the following items:

Three double-sided 48 inch ceiling signs suspended by existing hook and chain hardware

Nineteen 6 inch circle alphabet bookshelf end signs 

One 6 inch circle numerical wall sign 

Two 10 inch circle bookshelf end signs

Nine 14.5x10.75 "triple circle" bookshelf end signs

One 23.5x3.25 inch bookshelf top easel backed sign

One 11.5x3.25 inch bookshelf top easel backed sign

Two 12.5x3.25 inch bookshelf top easel backed signs

A shot of the fabricated signs before installation. Only sign not included in shot was the large ceiling sign for Picture Books.

Views of completed acrylic signs installed.

Detail of one of the "triple circle" bookshelf end panel signs.

Completed signs installed on bookshelf end panels and ceiling.

A view of bookshelf and ceiling mounted sign in the picture book area.

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

Library (Signage) Helps You Find Your Way

Can't find your way? Let the Library show you!

As a point of fact, our library is a fantastic resource for information and a wellspring of knowledge. There are some things it does well, and others that, shall we say, does a little "too well." Case in point, showing visitors the way out of our downtown Headquarters Library. 

Since my arrival at the library a couple of years ago, I've always marveled at how many EXIT signs (and derivatives thereof) keep popping up to point visitors out through the appropriate front door exit. Every few months, I go back to our lobby in part simply for my amusement as well as to more specifically count those signs:

One...two...ten...eighteen...more...are you kidding me? For four doors?

I, probably like a couple others (I'm sure we're an endangered species), will actually camp out to watch the traffic flow, paying careful attention to what visitors look at as they enter and exit the building. I want to see where their eyes are going, what catches their attention first, second, last. The interaction between visitor and the environment varies, of course, but by and large most people have been successfully "trained" to pass through a "metal detector" looking structure that scans for RFID stickers in front of one of the doors. Other visitors, however, probably consider the device an obstruction of some kind and decide to avoid it in favour of two other doors that appear to be more accessible--until they read the sign(s) on them.

Our lobby has four sliding glass doorways, two of which are identified as fire exits only, one as an entrance as indicated on both sides, and one as an exit, also indicated on both sides. In addition to that, library staff have printed numerous 8.5x11 pages to mount on windows, walls, and pedestals with ropes attaching them together that act as a funnel to guide visitors through to the RFID tag detector and the only door specified for exiting. The mass result looks like the photo above, compiling an impressive 20 or so signs that say "EXIT."

Why so many? Is it that difficult for visitors to find the exit? The obvious answer must be "yes!" otherwise some of those signs wouldn't be there. But the resulting visual clutter is an unsightly environmental chaos that looks tacky too. 

The challenge is how to fulfill city code requirements for emergency door access signage, yet reduce the overall number of signs it takes for the lowest common denominator of visitors to successfully navigate their way to the appropriate door. Just like "conduct code" signage, a balance needs to be struck between what is "reasonably sufficient," and what is "overkill."

Trust me, we have our crack team of experts working on it.

Now Open: Library Teen Space Marketing Designs

The newly created Teen Space identity.

The Teen Space entrance.

The ACLD Headquarters Library recently unveiled its new Teen Space, an area specifically set aside for teen reading, resources, games, and activities. A section of the library that housed the audio/video collection was renovated to create the space, and once everything was in place, a series of openings were held to announce its availability to the public. The space is large and in a partially enclosed corner of the library to help reduce noise levels drifting into the common reading area. A false wall with a window and doorway with the word "TEEN" serves as its entrance. 


For developing promotional materials, I went to inspect the aesthetics of the room. The colour scheme was gray and blue; the natural wood beams overhead were brown. The lettering on the entrance wall a generic helvetica-esque font. Overall, unremarkable if you don't consider the already existing architecture. I hoped the furniture would breath some life into the space later. But in the meantime, invitations, programs, and website banner ads needed to be made.


I wanted to promote the Teen Space as a vibrant, fun, exciting, teen destination of choice. But I couldn't do that with the existing bland gray and blue colour scheme already in place, so I just decided to boldly venture out on my own and hope for the best. I did, however, take my typographical cue from the entrance font style and would use that as the basis of a modern looking identity mark for the space. 


My first sense was to portray a person holding their arms wide apart in a grand gesture to impart the concept of greeting an open space. I wanted to investigate integrating the figure with a flood of light rays bursting forward from a central source to create a sense of dynamic energy. Fortunately, I knew I already had separate public domain clip art elements that could be combined together to achieve this affect, so I sourced for these and alternative choices to experiment with.

Teen Space Grand Opening event invitation front / back.

I also thought of a way to partially "frame" the illustration/text elements to further impart the idea of a defined space, so I used  typographical brackets set wide apart on either side of the text. This way it could "contain" the illustrative/text identity, yet also remain as an unenclosed space too. The brackets are also used in the library's quarterly newsletter, THINK..., so they also had a connection to additional library iconography already in use.

Teen Space Grand Opening program. Side flaps folded over the back to open out to reveal the event schedule.

A series of website banners were created.

Just as I used the colourful background image to show inside of the brackets on the invitation, I would also have it be contained within the word "Teen." The swirling background would center around the open armed human figure to focus attention on the teen. I worked with all the elements until I came up with positioning and size relationships that looked well as a strikingly colourful, vibrant identity mark. Then I applied the image to the front of a quarter page invitation, and utilized a modified set typographical brackets that included the background colour in them (rather than reversed out of it as it was on the front) for the back side to contain the invitation message.


The same identity image was used for the front of the follow-up promotional piece, the event program. I wanted to continue exploring the connotation of spacial relationships, so I made the program long, then folded two panels over the back to meet together in the middle, allowing them to open outward much in the way french doors would. The panels would display the event date and location, and opening the panels outwards would reveal the program schedule of events displayed inside on the program back.

TV PSA image.

Quarter page handbills, 20x30 inch welcome posters, a television public service announcement image, and a series of website banner ads were also created to promote the openings. Each utilized the Teen Space brand identity, and where possible, the library identity as well. At the grand opening event, the Teen Space identity even appeared as frosting on the cake!


Once the opening ceremonies were past, a rethinking and renaming of the Teen Space tagline would change from "A Space Of Their Own" to "A Space Of Our Own." 

Folding / trimming of the grand opening programs. Print two-sided front / back,
trimmed side excess areas, then folded to fit to back seam before trimming top / bottom
so that back flaps were evenly aligned with the front / back center panel.

The grand opening event even included a cake with the Teen Space identity on it!

Not to Confuse Our Movies...

Today I received a staff-wide email from one of our ACLD librarians that indicated our library was mentioned in USA Today for offering programs that welcome the homeless to "community living rooms."

http://www.usatoday.com/news/nation/2010-12-13-libraries13_ST_N.htm

The trend of seeing what may be an increasing percentage of the homeless population in our library is, I suppose, not uncommon among libraries these days. In our particular downtown library branch, the indigent wait for our doors to open early in the morning and stay until other facilities open later in the day--facilities like "soup kitchens" and overnight shelters. 

I have come to easily recognize the faces of some patrons I see on a regular basis, and think of them just as much a part of our interior environment as the furniture. These "regulars" are woven right into the fabric of our daily environment, and to some extent become, more or less, part of our extended workplace family--same as a guy who might come into a diner in the morning to order his "usual" meal or coffee.

On 10 Dec. 2010 I reported on one of our branch library offerings: "Saturday Matinee." This movie watching event is offered to students who bring in a report card with grades of "C" or higher--an event not to be confused with our headquarters branch Monday Movie event which is offered the general public (even for those same students if they chose to come) for which the USA Today article referred to.

The Matinee Mondays design work shown above displays what we refer to as a "webslide." These are up to eight individual web ads displayed in a looping slide show format on the library district home page website. The image used was found while sourcing public domain photography websites.

Signage: The Good, The Bad, The Ugly

Above: nine panels of a PowerPoint presentation, using images from the movie The Good, The Bad, & The Ugly to highlight examples of library signage. 

Thinking about clear, cohesive signage as part of my work in Singapore definitely reinforced my appreciation not only for its importance and impact on the public, but also about the kind of materials which were technically important for durability and to thwart vandalism as well. Developing a unified and consistent approach to how a corporation’s signage program is presented not only reinforces the effectiveness of the signage itself, but also projects a perception of a company’s level of attention and service to the public. Signage is just one aspect of the total package used to project the corporate image out into the public.

Where I work now for the Alachua County Library District in Gainesville, Florida, signage is everywhere at the 11 library branch locations. You could even honestly say that signage has run amuck for them. There is all kinds of signage, ranging from essential way-finding signs, all the way down to how much a copy machine costs to use. Much of the essential, legitimate signage is old and in need of being freshening up. Other signage is placed in locations and in such hap-hazard ways that they leave a person scratching their head, perplexed as if to say: what were they thinking? High on this list include signs produced by librarians on-the-run, responding to short-term problems with short-term solutions, often using whatever rudimentary computer text and decorating skills they have, then printing 8.5x11 inch signs out of the office printer—or worse yet—hand writing messages onto torn paper or Post-It notes. Occasionally, these solutions wind-up becoming semi-permanent fixtures in the public space. I cringe at the thought of all of these whenever I encounter them. Often, the word “tacky” rushes to my mind.

On the flip side of things, the library's display signage for collections, events and services is warm and welcoming in a home-made “crafty” sort of way (because that is essentially what it is—a lot of coloured butcher paper, print-outs, and Ellison cut stencil lettering like you might imagine being used on elementary/primary school bulletin boards. For better or worse, our library certainly won’t be mistaken for a high-end, slick retail space. 

I wouldn’t mind raising the aesthetics bar higher, however, so I have been compiling a selection of photos taken of signage throughout the our Headquarters Library branch to use in a PowerPoint presentation to highlight what I think examples of good, bad, and downright ugly use of signage has been in our library. I included bulleted discussion points of what makes signage effectively good, and what makes signage poor or ineffective. Over time, I plan to expand my appeal beyond my empathetic supervisor (with her assistance) for a more unified, cohesive branded approach to the use of signs throughout the library district.

Now, for most people, the design and development of informational signage is understandably boring. Either they don’t design or create signs, or they have little creative, technical, or material experience with the process of sign making. This is understandable, so in an attempt to liven up my presentation, I incorporated it into a tongue-in-cheek movie theater theme, featuring images of an indoor movie theater and screen, followed by images borrowed from the movie The Good, The Bad, & The Ugly. 

The title just worked so perfectly, I thought, and that is how I divided up my presentation, with bulleted points on each slide to reinforce the themed category I place them in. This presentation may never see the light of day; it might be revamped, toned down, or made more palatable to corporate viewing tastes. But for now it has been fun to work with and I think if nothing else, a way to open the eyes of the few who make decisions about the brand experience of the library either through signage directives or purchasing.

Building & Interior Design for DOK Library, Delft, Holland

I came across an interesting link today while googling for my very own blog. The other link was to Jenny Levine’s blog entry dated 19 March 2008, entitled “Visiting the Most Modern Library in the World” and part of  “The Shifted Librarian” blog. This entry mentioned certain aesthetic aspects of a library design in Delft, Holland.


http://theshiftedlibrarian.com/archives/2008/03/19/visiting-the-most-modern-library-in-the-world.html 


If you click on any of the very tiny photos on the blog, you will be transported to where you can view the images much larger at the linked Flickr page album here:


http://www.flickr.com/photos/dokdelft/sets/72157608201563435


http://www.flickr.com/photos/shifted/sets/72157604142377648/with/2341498809


Makes me want to take a trip to see it for myself!
Additional links and press about this concept library:


http://www.infotoday.com/mls/mar08/Boekesteijn.shtml