Happy Friday, dear readers! I hope your week has gone well and you have a wonderful weekend planned. I can hardly believe we’ll be in April next week. The time really does pass quickly, even if the spring days are getting longer here in the Bay Area. Today I just want to share a few links and thoughts about designing and being brave. I’ve been doing a lot of graphic design work this week so these two topics are on the forefront of my mind.

We’re getting ready for a week of National Library Week events at my library and I volunteered to take the lead on designing flyers, posters, and handouts for our events, so I’ve been doing a lot of graphic design work this week. And I love it, but it does take a significant amount of time, which I don’t mind because designing is one of the most fun tasks, outside of teaching and research, that I get to do. But it does mean that I have to be brave because when the posters go up and the handouts get given away, my designs are out there for potential criticism, which can be scary, even if you’re not designing something for some major campaign.

So I re-read this Lifehacker post on How to be braver in your everyday life and wanted to share it because I’m thinking a lot about being braver in everyday life, especially when it comes to sharing out my work and designs. Creating is super-fun, but sharing those creations can be a fear-producing thing because then it is in the public and not everyone will always like what you do. But I figure if I can handle the barbs (and sometimes incredibly unprofessional comments) from anonymous peer reviewers of my research, I can handle criticism of my designs. So that’s my baby way of being a bit braver and sharing out a bit more. I have to give a shout-out to Online Northwest because my presentation on graphic design there went over well, which has given me a lot more confidence to be brave about volunteering for design work and suggesting things at work.

I love hearing from artists about their work processes and what they love about what they do, so I obviously loved James White in this short video, How professional designers create their posters. I love how enthusiastic graphic designer, James White, is about his work and it looks awesome. If only all our library posters could look so cool and have such thought put into their designs.

One great way to make awesome posters or other designs for the library, or really for anything, is to start with a great photograph. So I had to share this lovely video on nine tips for photography composition, which uses amazing photographs by Steve McCurry to illustrate the tips. Watch and learn, or if it is all review for you, just admire the beautiful photographs.

I hope these videos and articles have pushed you, maybe, just a bit, into thinking about how you can be a little bit braver in your life and/or your library. Maybe they’ve inspired you, just a bit, to take a second look at a sign in your library or a flyer or a handout and think about how you might be able to improve it, just a bit. Or maybe you’re inspired to go out and capture some moments from you weekend. In any case, I hope you have a fantastic weekend and I’ll be back soon with more news and notes. Allons-y!