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October 2014

No Original Ideas

I’m pretty sure that there are no original ideas out there anymore.  I regularly apply this philosophy to designs I create.  When I start a new project, I find something that is inspiring, and then try to adapt the design (maybe just the colors, or shapes, or fonts) to my needs.  For example, I recently ran across the Scopus blog while preparing a presentation about the H-Index.

01-scopus-blog

I found the header of the blog to be modern and beautiful, and I wanted to try to recreate it.  However, with limited time, I couldn’t pull it off (you know, I had to focus on the content more than the design). Instead, I used my Colorzilla tool to capture the colors and I used the idea of the circles and connecting lines to illustrate the concept of “H-Index and Beyond,” as you can see below.  To further the modern feel of the presentation, I used the font, Multicolore, which you can download here (and here’s a little trick that Veronica just taught me about SlideShare: to avoid losing your non-standard fonts, save your document as a PDF before uploading to the site!).

I wouldn’t say that this is the best presentation I’ve ever created, and I still regret not being able to create the window-paned orbits like Scopus made, but I feel like it borrows from the original design without plagiarizing it.

You can find the original file here to download on the Librarian Design Share Google Drive Folder.  Feel free to modify the PowerPoint for your own use, and if you create something cool, let us know!  We love to feature updates of designs here on the blog.

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Vintage-Modern Message

Paseo Verde Library in Nevada has the same problem that many libraries do: patrons who loudly carry on phone conversations without regard for those around them.  Instead of shushing or putting up passive-aggressive signage that no one reads, Virtual Branch Librarian Tawnya Shaw designed something that clearly conveys the message with an image that might just cause patrons to do a double-take:

No-Cell-Sign2

To create this eye-catching design, Tawnya used Photoshop to alter a piece of Victorian clip art and Rockwell font for the text.  The combination of image, font, and white space make this vintage design somehow feel very modern and effective.

Want to get the message out at your library?  You can download the original files from the Librarian Design Share Google Drive Folder and modify as you wish.

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Brochures for Students & Alumni

Big thanks to Rebecca Seipp, Outreach & Humanities Liaison Librarian at the Wyndham Robertson Library at Hollins University, for being one of our first Back-to-School design features. Rebecca’s sharing the “Guides to the Library” brochures for students and alumni that she recently revised. These kinds of publications are so tough to pull together. Information changes constantly, and it’s always a balancing act between including information that you think will be helpful and not bombarding people with too much text. I think Rebecca strikes a fantastic balance.

Student Guide - Front and Back - Final
Student Library Guide – Front & Back

Here’s Rebecca talking about her work on these brochures:

This summer I updated our alumnae and student guides at the library. Over the past few years information was continually added to these guides without any redesign. Predictably, that resulted in guides that were dated and dense. My goals for the new guides were twofold: to create a clean look and to include just enough information to highlight our services and keep people interested. All the images were taken by university marketing and the primary colors are from the university’s color palette. Both guides were created in Photoshop and are designed to be printed front/back and folded vertically. You’ll notice that the student guide has text on the inside middle – since it’s only one page when folded the text is still easy to read and it adds an unexpected design element.

Student Guide - Inside Final
Student Guide – Inside

You can see that the guides for alumni are targeted to their specific population and make nice use of a stunning shot of the library and a calm color palette.

Rebecca has shared the original Photoshop files for these brochures on the Librarian Design Share Google Drive Folder. She just has two notes about the files:

The Hollins University logo was removed from the back side of the alumnae guide and replaced with text that says “your logo here.”

When creating the student guide I accidentally flattened the back that has the staff pictures – oops! So what I did is created the boxes and text in the boxes as separate layers and then just have the images grouped together as one layer. So the bones will still be there, but there won’t be any guides for the size of images and text boxes for librarian info.

Thanks for the heads up, Rebecca, and thanks for sharing!

Alumnae Guide Front and Back
Alumnae Guide – Front and Back
Alumnae Guide - Inside
Alumnae Guide – Inside
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Chalkboard-Style Poster Design (with Fonts to Love)

Chalkboard Poster by Nono Burling

Nono Burling, Online Resources Coordinator at Washington State Library and manager of the ASK WA Virtual Reference Project, first shared this amazing chalkboard-style poster design on the ACRL Library Marketing and Outreach (LMaO) Facebook group, and we are so excited to feature it here today. It’s a good example of trying something new with conference poster design and makes great use of interesting fonts. Here’s Nono talking about her design process:

I’d originally been asked to present at the College Librarians and Media Specialists of Washing State (CLAMS) 2014 fall conference, but due to time constraints my presentation turned into a poster session. I wanted something eye-catching that would draw people. I’ve always loved those chalkboard designs you see in coffee shops so decided to try one of my own. The “Sneak Peek” part of the poster is a lift-the-flap piece. The entire design goes on a 36″ by 48″ tri-fold poster board.

Here are some of the fonts I used in this design for both the text and ornamental pieces, all free to download:

You can also see more fonts that would work well on a chalkboard design at this great Font Round-Up.

Nono’s poster was created using MS Publisher and Powerpoint. You can download the original files from the Librarian Design Share Google Drive Folder and adapt to your heart’s content (just remember to give Nono a shout-out). Excuse me while I go download all these fonts…

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Back-to-School Designs

Welcome Back

The start of the fall semester is a crazy time for those of us who work in school or academic libraries. There are usually orientations for new undergrads, grad students and faculty; open house events for prospective students; and plenty of campus tours that highlight the awesomeness of our libraries. We know many of you out there have put together some amazing orientation materials for your libraries and we’d love to feature them. Brochures, websites, buttons, stickers–if you used them at the start of this semester, we want to see them.

Just submit your design to librariandesignshare@gmail.com and help us build an amazing collection of reusable designs.

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