April and I started our foray into graphic design for libraries designing humble flyers. We wanted to share information with our community about library events, hours, policies, and practices. Today’s post, the final Librarian Design Share post, brings us back to where it all began. Here are some lovely flyers to close out our site.
Springshare’s Libguides have become an integral part of our work as librarians, and although we’ve all come to accept certain best practices in their creation, there’s still the matter of making well-presented information look good. Miyo Sandlin, Digital Services and Instruction Librarian at St. Francis College, recently revamped the library’s APA Style research guide with an eye towards usability, aesthetics, and style.
Today’s submission is from Ashley Schmidt, who designed these library shelf endcaps while employed at Fort Worth Library. Here’s Ashley in her own words:
We have two new Year in Review infographics for you courtesy of Debbie Lind, Director of Wallowa Public Library, and Amy Kitchen, Marketing and Communications Graphic Designer for the Johnson County Public Library. Both designs do an excellent job highlighting the ins and outs of a year at a busy public library and share statistics with easy-to-read graphics and clean layouts. Continue reading “Year in Review Infographics”
Public libraries thrive on their volunteer base, and Olivia Allen, Library Public Assistant at McMinnville Public Library, wanted to create a brochure that would help her library recruit the best and the brightest.
I made this so we could have something to hand out to people interested in volunteering. Before we had this, we would give them the application to fill out. I wanted there to be something they could look at to get an idea of what volunteering is like instead of a big intimidating form. We really simplified all the information we could stuff onto the brochure, so this way it is easy to understand and it doesn’t feel like we expect them to make a decision right away. It also states the volunteers keep the library running, which is so true, and that is definitely the first impression we want to give. I used Canva to create this design.
You can find this brochure on the Librarian Design Share Google Drive.
When Gail Schaub, Cara Cadena, Patricia Bravender, and Christopher Kierkus, surveyed 750 students at Grand Valley State University, one thing was clear: the language of information literacy can be complex and confusing. To combat misunderstandings, Gail began a collaboration with graphic arts professor Vinicius Lima where students would create visual representations and definitions of frequently used information literacy and library terms. The resulting campaign–Learn the Terms–resulted in some beautiful work by student artists, Stephen Dobrzynski, Jacob Luettke, Micah Martin, Carissa Storms. You can read more about this amazing collaboration and view all of the resulting artwork via the Grand Valley State University’s Open Teaching Tools.
Here’s Gail describing this collaborative project:
The “Learn the Terms” campaign was the result of a study I did with colleagues. We discovered in a survey of over 750 students on campus (a representative sampling), that 50% of our students don’t know the meanings of words they hear regularly in classrooms and on syllabi, terms like scholarly, peer-review, and even journal.
We published our findings, but I knew that we had to let others know, and offer some kind of solution. I collaborated with Vinicius Lima, a professor of graphic arts here, and his students created these designs that we’ve since produced and are sharing in the library and beyond. The designs are in our institutional repository for sharing:http://scholarworks.gvsu.edu/oer_teaching/2/
There’s a new group of students working on designs for a new list of eight terms for creation in the coming year. It’s been an incredible experience, being part of the design thinking process with these students, and I’m so enamored by their work, I want to show everyone I possibly can.
We can’t wait to see what new designs this year’s students develop!
Hello, friends.
As difficult as this is, I want to get right to the point: At the end of this month, April and I will be sunsetting Librarian Design Share. What does that mean, you ask? It means that we will no longer be posting to the site, BUT the site will remain live, as will the Google Drive with all of the amazing designs you’ve shared with the Librarian Design Share community over the years.
April and I started this project 5 years ago. It was a true labor of love. Something we started because our day-to-day work involved a healthy dose of graphic design and visual creative work. We wanted to create a space where those of us in libraries could share our creativity, learn from one another, grow our graphic design skills, and adapt beautiful work. What followed was better than we could have ever imagined.
YOU helped us grow Librarian Design Share into a vibrant, fun, supportive community. We’ve learned from you, been wowed by your work, and amazed at how you’ve adapted designs. We are so honored to have provided a platform for the work of so many talented librarians. From the bottom of our hearts: Thank you.
Why is this the end?
Over the past few years April and I have been through some pretty big career changes. April’s now a Library Dean, and my own career focus has been much more on instruction coordination and critical information literacy. As much as library outreach and graphic design will always have a place in our hearts, our careers have taken us on a new journey. We’re excited to find out what new projects await us.
Now for the details
You may have noticed that April and I haven’t been posting to Librarian Design Share with any regularity. We sincerely apologize. Our work and personal life has taken us in so many different directions that it’s been very difficult to devote time to this meaningful project.
Over the next two weeks we will be posting designs that have already been submitted to us via gmail. We will no longer be accepting new design submissions. So keep an eye out on Twitter for the last few designs from Librarian Design Share. We hope you enjoy them.
Again, LibrarianDesignShare.org will remain live for the next year or so, as will our Google Drive repository. After that April and I will decide on the future fate of the site.
For now, we want to say, again, THANK YOU. ❤
Librarian Design Share 