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)

Marketing Design for Graphic Novels Author Events

A large format poster publicized the series of library visiting author events.

Library website banner ads featured single or combined authors.

During the month of October, the Alachua County Library District Headquarters Library will host six different events featuring visiting graphic novel authors, two of which who will also be participating in the local Florida Writers' Festival in Gainesville. Publicity for the library events included creation of a 45x45 inch large format display poster installed at Headquarters Library; two print adverts published in the local newspaper; and two library website banner ads. For extended application, the green panel for author Andrew Nichols was also delivered as an independent image to a librarian who planned to create her own event-specific signs and handbills.

Images used to create the publicity designs included head shots and book covers supplied by the authors. Detail areas from public domain illustration and custom-created textures were also used. Inspiration for the design styling came from researching common graphic design elements used in comic books and graphic novels. The design process included work created and/or modified using software from the Adobe Creative Suite: Photoshop, Illustrator and InDesign.

Marketing Designs for Author Stephanie A. Smith Library Event

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Library Marketing Designs for Tennessee & Friends

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

The simple design evoked a style from another era.

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

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

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

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

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

Library Directional Way Finding and Interior Room Signage Design Development

New signage system displays treatments for general
public way finding and secondary room signage styles

I've been eager to post some new design work for quite a while. But in the 33 days my last post on 20 July, I've created and delivered over 93 design projects and worked on an additional ghastly sum well beyond that. Some of these projects even have multiple pages or pieces associated with them, such as a 37-piece signage plan for a recently renovated children's area, and an additional 28 signs to continue with implementation of a plan set in stages for another area of the same library. Then there is the 34 sign schedule for a new branch building currently under construction, and its accompanying 62 collection signs--all of which need to be digitally designed and tested by myself in-house using Adobe Illustrator before being client approved and sent out to signage companies for fabrication. For this post, lets just stick with the signage; I won't even attempt to highlight any of the daily print projects needing design development for promoting library events.

In the spring of 2013 I developed a signage plan for the library district based on and modified from other existing designs. The resulting proposed signage system was created to simplify and unify decades of hodge-podge, ad hok sign styles that had sprouted up like weeds over the years. The design intent was to present a two-prong sign style: one for general public directional and locational signs, then a second, more elegant one for room and special area designations. Both would use clear 1/8 inch acrylic plexiglass material and display black vinyl lettering on a white background. Smaller collection signage would also make use of a two piece laser-engraved plastic. Signs would range from the 7x4 inch to 14x6.25 inch collection signs, and from 6x6 inch door signs to 33x14 inch large overhead signs.

Upon closer inspection, you can see how some holes
are missing their braille pegs.

Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA) compliancy was taken into consideration during design development, but I found the code so specific and restrictive that there seemed little opportunity to divert from the specifications where creativity and unique signage development was concerned. So instead, I moved the design to be as close to ADA compliancy as possible without fulfilling every minute requirement, such as a 3/16 inch raised letters mandate on the surface of the signs. I did, however, make sure to use a high black/white lettering point size and background contrast, and I added a braille component to signs that were to be installed within user height code specifications. The design wasn't intended to fulfill ADA requirements 100%, but it was to achieve as much of it as possible while allowing for some stylistic variances in type font and material selection.

A selection of different coloured two-ply plastic signs utilized
a laser to burn away the lettering through the plastic
surface. These were used for collection book shelf signs. 

Our sign fabricator did a fantastic job on the signs, but it wasn't without a hiccup along the way. We had subcontracted a second vendor to create the braille after signs were made, one who would drill holes and insert small pegs into them to create the braille nubs. We received a very nice sample, but we received the live signs, the braille pegs that were inserted into the acrylic began to fall out almost immediately. So we had to recall the signs that used braille pegs and went back to the drawing board to create a second set of signs that simply used a plastic adhesive strip of braille and glued that to the sign surface.

In the end the resulting signage system was well received. It went far to achieve its goal to simplify and unify the appearance and functionality of the public spaces in the library and successfully established itself as the basis for future sign development district-wide. 

Library Children's Area Renovation Grand Opening Invitation, Program, and Web Banner

Completed event invitation shows front and interior pop-up sides.
Exterior illustration went fully around the back and included the library logo.

First attempts to work out mechanics of the invitation folding and
integrated design relationship with the program are shown here.

In July the Alachua County Library District's Headquarters Library celebrated completion of a "rejuvination" (coined by me to play off the word "juvenile") of its Children's Area. A new coat of paint covered walls, new carpeting hit the floor, a colourful selection of new furniture livened up the space, collection stacks and the librarian station were upgraded and repositioned, and to top it all off, a decorative wall mural and set design was built to surround columns to create a "Snuggle Up" center.

I knew as far back as March that an event would be held to celebrate the completion, but it wasn't until May that I even had an idea what was being proposed for the decorative set design. The date of the event wasn't confirmed until only three weeks before it was to take place, and confirmation of speakers at the event not confirmed until the two days before the event. It is precisely because of this kind of lag in event planning and execution that a smart, pro-active designer needs to be able to work in advance as much as possible in order to have a design concept approved and project files prepared and essentially ready to go--save for whatever eleventh hour changes in language might be required. That way, making a few last minute changes won't be as big an issue as trying to start the entire set of collaterals would be. 

Showing use of artist renderings on
the invitation (front) and program (behind).

Once I was able to get my hands on a pencil rendering of the proposed set design, I began to develop a general concept for an invitation and event program. The plan was to either use the pencil renderings as the only artwork on the event collaterals or to use them in combination with photos of the finished spaces in a "before and after" style. Eventually, due to the lack of time between completion of set construction and the celebration event date, I went with rendering art only as the style. 

A highlight of the architectural decoration was to dress four vertical posts with free-form elements cut out of plastic Tyvek or a similar material. These elements were then mounted to the columns and ceiling to create a "tree," complete with leaves and even a tree house for one of the children's book characters. I used this architectural feature as inspiration for the event invitation, choosing to make a pop-up card out of the rendering of the planned set design. 

Program front (top) and back (above) continue use of the
artist renderings and introduce colour in a symbolic nod
to its completion.

It took a number of trials before I could work out the perfect placement of the art on the page in order for a fold to work out well. I would print on both sides of 110lb card stock, fold in half and use an x-acto blade to cut sections of part of the page to enable me to fold it in the opposite direction of the folding card page so that when opened, a shape would be created that emulated the shape of one of the set design columns. I liked that I was able to use the artist's rough concept rendering of the planned work because I felt it lent itself well to an unpolished, child-like quality children could relate to well. It took a number of trials (the variety of attempts shown in the photo) to position the artwork on both sides of the page and the mechanics of the cuts and folds before I could get the pop-up to work out perfectly.

The program was much easier to execute. It was a flat half page front/back card stock, featuring a new artist rendering of the column on the front side, then the same invitation front rendering shown again on the back side of the program, introducing a couple of colours on back to emphasize the column and differentiate it from its associated hanging features. Adding colour to the artwork was to symbolize its completion since taking a photograph of the finished construction wasn't possible in order to  print the program in time for the event.

To round out the promotional collaterals, two website banners were made for announcing the approaching celebration event and later a more generic one to reinforce the newly refreshed space were made. This is where the "before-and-after" visuals were finally put to use.

Two website banners announce the celebration event (top)
and ongoing reminder of its rejuvinated status (above). 

In all, project requirements 
included printing, trimming
die-cutting and folding of 
300 invitations, 
100 programs,
and two web banners. 

Photos taken of the construction phases and of the celebration event can be found on the library's Flickr account at www.flickr.com/acld.

Library Newsletter, THINK...Summer 2013

Television Public Service Announcement for THINK....

Summer 2013 cover of THINK...

The library's free Summer newsletter issue of THINK... arrived in July. This issue covers current news and over 800 scheduled events from July through September. 

The print edition of 2,750 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. Online copies are also available on the library's website at, http://aclib.us/news. This issue's visual theme utilizes youth, teen, and adult Summer Reading marketing images and in-house modifications thereof. The large, black shovel image topped with a rainbow on it was taken from one of our library renovation invitation and program designs and
also plays into the "Dig It" theme.