Happy Friday, dear readers! I can hardly believe we are coming to the end of another month. Was it a good month for you? Did you get a chance to do complete some projects, design something fun, and read some good books? I feel like I need a week to sleep so I can process everything and get some new projects underway. Today, I want to share a few links to design inspiration and a few tips that I’ve been thinking about as I’ve started a new research project on librarians and graphic design.

First, I wanted to share this article from Smashing Magazine, Underestimated power of color in mobile app design. Thoughtful use of color is so important and often an afterthought, at least in some of the recent designs I’ve been seeing. This article is a great overview (or review) of color theory and things to think about to ensure when you use color it isn’t just beautiful, but it is accessible, too. While you may not be designing an app for your library (although that sounds like fun!), lots of our patrons access your library’s website and resources through their phones. This means thinking about how color works in a mobile world makes sense for all of us. Let’s make great color choices for our libraries, okay?

Second, another article, this time on Understanding stacked bar charts. As more and more libraries look to present their statistics and evidence in visually pleasing ways, data visualization is becoming incredibly important skill for librarians. This is a great overview of the why and how to create stacked bar charts. I found this especially timely as we are working on reports in the library now and discussing how to best present our data.

Finally, in terms of design, I had to share a thought from one of the interviews I’ve done recently with librarians about design. It is something that every librarian who is a de facto graphic designer for their library should paste to their wall: “There’s no excuse for ugly.” I completely agree with this statement. In graphic design, no matter what we are creating, there is no excuse for ugly. Whatever we design, there is no excuse to create something ugly. While tastes differ in terms of design, to me, ugly means non-accessible, difficult to understand, and completely without thought to composition, color, type, or theme.

Whatever we create, we owe it to our library patrons and ourselves to create something that is beautiful and communicates our library’s mission, services, and resources clearly and effectively. With graphic design so often being seen as an afterthought in libraries, let’s not give anyone the excuse that it isn’t worth the time because the results are bad. Go out and create something wonderful. It is worth the time and the effort.

And, simply because I love Santa Cruz and it feels like we should all be taking off on vacation soon: One day, one place: Santa Cruz. Enjoy!

I hope you have a lovely weekend full of good friends, good food, and good reads. I’ll be back soon with more. Allons-y!