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August 2014

Commercial Appeal

You know that time at the beginning of a class where students are shuffling in, uncomfortably finding seats, messing with their phones, and avoiding eye contact with the instructor? I seem to have 5-10 minutes of this time at every session, and I realized that I should take advantage of this captive audience.  Always thinking of ways to promote the library’s services, I made a library commercial.

It’s not nearly as fancy as it seems…I just made a PowerPoint (based on the format of this presentation) that is eye-catching, informative, and spurs some conversation beyond the awkward greeting that I extend to the students.  I have the presentation scrolling as students arrive and then again as they leave.  We’ve even started running the commercial at the TV near our Information Desk during the day.

I think there are lots of ways to expand on this idea.  You could add sound, market different services to different patrons, turn it into web slides, make it longer or more interactive…but this is a start.  If you are interested in modifying the original PowerPoint file for your own library, you can access it on Librarian Design Share’s Google Drive.

 

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For the Font Lovers

We’re always on the hunt for unique and stylish fonts for our library marketing and outreach materials. Bored with my usual go-to fonts, I started digging around online and stumbled upon two great resources: The League of Moveable Type and Typewolf.

The League of Moveable Type

The League of Moveable Type is a collective of typeface designers who are making amazing fonts available under SIL’s Open Font License (a group clearly after librarians’ hearts). You can use these fonts for personal, organizational or commercial designs as long as you credit the original designer. You can read their entire Manifesto online, subscribe to their newsletter, follow their blog and browse available fonts. My favorite right now is Ostrich Sans.

Typewolf

Typewolf, curated by Jeremiah Shoaf, is a great source of font recommendations and typeface inspiration. He links to actual uses of different fonts on the web so that you can see them in practice, which is particularly helpful if you’re trying to decide on a font to use for a virtual project.

Happy font-hunting!

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A Place for Color: Design Seeds

Design Seed Image

In my search for a nice color palette for a Library Instruction West slide deck, I came across the website Design Seeds via its amazing presence on Pinterest. The site is HEAVEN for anyone in search of color inspiration for a flyer, presentation, or larger outreach and marketing campaign. It’s the brainchild of designer Jessica Colaluca and I highly encourage you to check it out!

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For the Love of Icons

Last month April and I presented at the 2014 Library Instruction West Conference in amazing Portland, Oregon. Our session was on effective methods for teaching “experienced researchers” (faculty, professionals, grad students, thesis writers, etc.), but our slide deck was ALL ABOUT THE ICONS (as you can see). We drew heavily from public domain and CC-licensed icons available from The Noun Project, a fantastic repository of “the world’s visual language” in symbols and icons.

You can access this presentation on Librarian Design Share’s Google Drive, or better yet, take a look at The Noun Project today! Trust me: You will find the icon you need.

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Attention Teens!

Teen Hangs

Getting teens’ attention in the library is hard. Luckily, Maggie Block, Young Adult Librarian at the Aldine Branch of the Harris County Public Library, has a great flyer suggestion for drawing them in to library events.

I wanted something that would grab teens at my library’s attention and get them excited about Teen Hangs without bogging it down with descriptions and attempts at “hip” language. And just using bright controllers managed to do just that: let them know this event would be fun and centered around their entertainment needs.

Maggie’s made the original Photoshop file of her flyer available to download via the Librarian Design Share Google Drive. (We’re just starting it up so there isn’t much in it right now.) Thanks, Maggie!

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