Library Presentation Pocket Folder Design

Design of a new pocket folder incorporated elements taken from the recognizable past 
(watercolour image of Headquarters Library) and recently emphasized (mission statement 
language used in a bold corporate colour scheme) for a more dynamic marketing tool.

Want a way to keep yourself organized and be remembered at the same time? Consider a pocket folder, the relatively inexpensive stationery tool that can carry your essentials while also delivering your organizational image and branded message at the same time.

Pocket folders are a great way to present a collection of otherwise separate, loose documents together all in one convenient manner. They also offer an excellent opportunity to act as a "leave behind" product that can extend your organization's visibility well beyond the event at which they are first received. Use the folder to present information to people at meetings and events. Once the event is over and the shelf life of the information contained within expires, the pocket folder could potentially live on to remain useful by both containing new information and by continuing to keep your image in view. 

When I had the opportunity to redesign the corporate pocket folder for the Alachua County Library District, I reviewed the existing folder. It was about as minimal in design concept and material use as you could possibly imagine. It literally only printed its logo in one colour on the cover and inside pocket, and the paper choice appeared to be a flimsy, 8 point coated cover stock. Any thinner and it would have been a piece of writing paper. The message it presented was that the library, while getting kudos for being thrifty, was also being exceptionally cheap and unimaginative. 

I wanted to redesign the folder do some work for the library. I felt it was important to maximize the opportunity to be not only a practical tool, but also one that brought two existing and easily identifiable branding visual elements that had yet to be seen together into the presentation. The folder could act as "a bridge" by bringing together these two visual components of the library's visual branding elements: an old watercolour image and a new graphic presentation style dominated by bold colours, typographic styling and a newly refined logo treatment.

One of the library's long-standing and most recognizable images was use of a watercolour painting of its Headquarters building. It was the image that appeared on every personal library card, so it would be easily identified on the folder. You can see how the library card looks here:
http://librarymarketingdesign.blogspot.com/2010/11/library-card-month-display-september.htmlhttp://librarymarketingdesign.blogspot.com/2010/11/library-card-month-display-september.html

Another more recently developed branding piece the library was beginning to use was its new welcome brochure. It utilized a bold colour scheme and prominently featured three important words identified in its mission statement: "participate, connect and discover." You can see how the welcome brochure looks here:
http://librarymarketingdesign.blogspot.com/2012/08/the-evolution-of-library-welcome.html

The watercolour image of Headquarters Library had been used for years, but it was both small in dimension and low in resolution too. It wouldn't scale up to a 10x14 inch pocket folder size without becoming noticeably pixilated, so I requested the Library Foundation—which had the original artwork—to allow me to photograph the painting. That way, I could start with a much larger, higher resolution image and save it for future projects as well. Once I received the original painting, I discovered that I couldn't remove it from its glass covered frame without tearing off a backing paper that sealed the painting to the frame. I had hoped to avoid shooting through glass because of the potential for light reflections and mirroring. Nevertheless, I managed to shoot the painting at an angle to avoid those things, then used Photoshop to correct the slightly perspective-distorted digital image created from shooting the watercolour at an angle.

The library also had two versions of its logos: one with its name under a book, and one with its name and a tag line to the side of a book. I recently updated both of these logos so they could seen better when displayed small. I had removed portions of the original book rendering and increased line weights for greater visibility so they would reduce instances of lines disappearing when displayed small. 

I wanted the redesigned pocket folder to have a colourful and bold quality like the recently created welcome brochure. To achieve that, I used big, diagonally placed bands of the same primary and secondary corporate colours to contain the mission statement words. The words were set using the library's corporate bold italic Arial font style. I angled the colour bands upwards from the back (where the words would be seen) to cross over the upper left of the front (where one of the bands would contain the corporate logo + tagline). This would allow me to utilize the space well and in an energetic manner, and to visually connect the front to the back of the folder. I duplicated and flipped the watercolour image so that it created a continual, seamless background image behind the diagonal text bands. This also allowed the roof of the building to poke up from behind the colour bands which was important for when the folder was viewed only on the back side.

Inside, the two, five inch pocket flaps would use the two primary corporate colours, display the primary corporate logo (the one that doesn't use the tagline), and offer a place for inserting a business card into die cut slits. 

For paper, I chose a heavier 12 point coated cover stock to make the folder sturdier and to appear more luxurious. Because the paper stock was already coated, I could leave one side unprinted to save on printing cost, knowing that the unprinted side would still present nicely due to its already coated sheen. The inked side was coated with an additional aqueous clear coat after printing to help reduce fingerprint smudging and to protect the printed surface.

Hopefully, this design example shows that although the pocket folder may be just paper, when used well it can go a long way to deliver not only your news, but how you want to be remembered too.

Before and after: the redesigned pocket folder (top three items)
along with the older pocket folder (bottom two white items).

Thinking "Out of the Box" for Library Event Marketing

Promotional signs and handbills were created in the
appearance of a model parts kit for easy recognition
and a direct visual link to the event theme.

One of our librarians organized a library event for patrons interested in building model vehicles. It would include quest speakers from a local organization who would give a presentation about model building and would even offer free model kits to hand out to participants. I was asked if I could create signs and handbills to help promote the event with, so I inquired about what information and visuals were available. Did the organization have a logo, possibly some photos of themselves, models they'd built, or any other potential images? The only visual available was their organizational logo, so with that and the most essential event information, I turned to ways I could present the information in an eye-catching manner. 

After a little research looking at visuals for model building, I decided to present the event text information as pieces of a model still attached to its kit frame the way most models appear when taken out of their respective boxes. Having a little room left over in various areas, I filled those spots in with a few recognizable vehicle elements to help make the presentation more recognizable. 

Because model kits are unpainted upon delivery, the kit needed to be only one colour.  The presenter's logo was a primarily black .jpg image, so I made the entire frame and model pieces black to match. Simple white rules were placed along the arms of the frame to give the illusion of "highlights" that would help give some dimension to the otherwise flat black colour scheme image. The librarian then used bright yellow colour paper to print the images on for eye-catching, high contrast signs and handouts.

Total items delivered:
1 master 8.5x11 inch sign to print out a total of 20 signs
1 master 8.5x11 inch page showing four handbills to print out a total of 200 handbills

Chinese New Year at the Library 2013 Marketing Design

A horizontal 11x8.5 inch sign design set the stage for the following design pieces.

Quarter page handbills were printed 4-up to an 8.5x11 inch
page then trimmed by hand to allow a white border on all sides.

The Chinese New Year 2013 celebration is upon us and our Headquarters Library youth services department will host an event that will include a variety of entertaining activities for those who attend. To help publicize the event, they requested four print and online collaterals:

200 Handbills
8 8.5x11 inch signs
1 Web banner / webslide
1 Magazine print ad

Instead of focusing on depicting each and every one of the activities that would take place at the event, I chose one so the visual image could be larger and have more impact. I was interested to use a piece of black and white vector clip art I'd had for a couple of years of two children waving traditional decorations in the air. I thought the stencil-like quality of the art would make for a perfect shadow puppet that could throw a larger shadowy version of itself onto the background. 

Due to the vertical dimension of the magazine print ad,
text from the curtain had to be repositioned under
the illustration elements, but it worked out fine.

So I changed the colour of the stencil to red to pick up the colour of a domain free "theater curtain" image, then duplicated the stencil element and skewed it a little to emulate a shadow being thrown on a background "screen" surface. I realized that I needed some "sticks" to hold up the stencil puppets, so after a little investigation I saw that some sticks are topped with a little ball at the end which then hold the puppets. I modified and imported some domain free wood textures into the sticks and ball tops, and used another wood surface texture to become the edge of the theater window. This window edge provided the opportunity to run shadows of the sticks up it then terminate at the top edge, then resume again at different horizontal locations to continue the upward climb on the back surface to the puppet shadow. The back surface was shaded to create a light source "hot spot" to further impart the effect of the shadow puppet experience.

The home page website banner art left focused on the art and left
additional information for the caption that would appear underneath.

Although I sourced for what I consider to be the commonly overused, stereotypical, decorative fonts used on many Chinese take-out menus and the like, in the end I preferred a more playful, less hokey font. An originally lengthy descriptive event text was paired back to enable the text point size to be enlarged for better reading visibility, and lastly, the essential time/date/place and corporate logo were all added in areas that were complimentary to the different dimensions of each collateral piece.

I was really pleased with the colour palette and especially with the amount of open space allowed to remain for the image presentation.

Marketing Designs for Black History Month 2013 Library Events

The final design concept blended a variety of visual images together
and gave greater prominence to the title size.

I began developing visual concepts for our library district's Black History Month event publicity in early November. Many of our library branches hold a variety of different Black History Month related events throughout the month of February, so instead of creating a completely unique design concept for some of those events, I prefer instead to create and establish a central design theme that different event programs can utilize elements from, either entirely or in part. This helps to reduce my work load while at the same time providing recognizable uniformity from one event to the next for the district's celebration as a whole.

The Association for the Study of African American Life and History (ASALH), headquartered in Washington, D.C., sets the annual national theme for Black History Month. The association's mission is to promote, research, preserve, interpret and disseminate information about Black life, history and culture to the global community. You can read more about the 2013 theme from the following links: 
http://www.asalh.net/docs/2013ExecutiveSummary.pdf 
http://www.asalh.org/blackhistorythemes.html 
http://www.asalh.org/docs/2013%20Theme%20At%20the%20Crossroads%20of%20Freedom%20and%20Equality.pdf

Initial design concept emphasized the flag's 50 stars
marching to Washington D.C.

The ASALH set the 2013 theme title as: "At the Crossroads of Freedom & Equality: The Emancipation Proclamation & The March on Washington." While the historical aspects are greatly interesting and important, the title itself was quite a mouthful both verbally and visually. Nevertheless, that was the basis for my design concept, and I moved forward with seeing how I could find visuals that encapsulated that message.

I first sourced for images that would support the theme, primarily looking for images of the Emancipation Proclamation, photos of people marching on Washington, D.C., maps, flags, and chains. I also knew that I would have to apply whatever my design theme would become to one specific library event that would highlight dancing, so I also sourced for vector clip art of dancers.

The broadcast PSA variation.

My first concept direction was to remake an American flag image by inserting an American map where the white stripes would normally be and a blue-toned detail of an Emancipation Proclamation illustration where the stars would normally be. I wanted the 50 stars to be in the process of relocating from their usual position to flow along two of the red stripes--as if marching--toward a portion of the exposed map that showed Washington, D.C. I then reversed out the theme title in a few of the remaining red stripes, but after seeing how small the wording was to the overall design, I decided I needed to move in a different direction that would give more prominence to the title.

This sign for a related dance event shows
how the general design visuals were
applied to create a new image but still relate
to the established general design theme.

On my second design concept, I used an image of the Emancipation Proclamation illustration in the background and wanted to create a road image with striped, dashed highway lines that ended as arrows pointing to a detail portion of a map showing Washington, D.C. Clever alert: once I had the white dashed lines placed over top of the black roads, the remaining visual space on the road surrounding the white dashed lines reminded me of a chain shape, so I modified the elements to include the gray "links" of a chain around the white dash marks to give an even more symbolic meaning to the road to Washington, D.C. 

At this point I still had my roads orientated in the shape of a "+" and needed to find a place for the title. I first tried to split portions of the title above and below the illustration, but when I did the text seemed too far removed from each other, so I decided to change the orientation of my "+" road intersection to become an "x" orientation instead, and lay an additional horizontal black band across the middle of the intersection to insert the title into. Having the title more centered within the illustration worked much better for me and, in an ironic twist, also provided an additional subtle similarity to the design of a Confederate flag.

Web page banner.

Projects included:

General quarter page handbills

350 General 8.5x11 inch flyer

1 General television PSA

1 General celebration webslide

1 General celebration blog icon

1 General newspaper print ad

Blog icon.

250 Dance event quarter page handbills

1 Dance event 11x17 inch poster

1 Dance event television PSA

1 Dance event newspaper print ad

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!).

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.