Author: dwakimoto

Friday Design: Timely Design

/ dwakimoto

Hello, dear readers. I hope your week has been going well. We’ve had a bit of hot, hot weather so I’m hoping the next week give us a reprieve. But the design show must go on! Today I wanted to talk a bit about timely design and why it matters.

I was in my local Target the other day and saw this end-cap display:

photo showing timely, well-placed display that libraries can copy

I had to take a photo because this is what I’m talking about when I’m talking about timely design. It’s summer and who doesn’t want a tasty frozen treat during a heatwave? Everything you need is here, including gluten-free cones and an ice cream scoop! It’s perfect and was set up right by the frozen dessert aisle.

Timely, convenient, organized, well-marked. Great design, great promotion, and I bet it moved a lot of waffle cones, toppings, and ice cream, which was the entire point.

So what does this have to do with libraries and design?

Everything.

How often do you and your colleagues thing about timely design? About placing collections, service points, and signage right where people need them? Where it is convenient rather than where we’ve always had it?

How can you incorporate timely design into your library?

You can start small. Why not place some guidebooks and summer reads by a fabulously designed poster promoting free museum passes via the library’s Discover & Go program? People can find out more around the museums they go to and get a book to read on the bus or train or in the museum’s garden when they need a break.

Libraries do great book displays for various events such as Banned Books Week, Blind Date with a Book, heritage months, and more. These are timely, but how can you make them more compelling and timely? Use your creativity and your graphic design skills to showcase other linked resources that people might not know about. Banned Books and promotion of legal help via the lawyer in the library program. Test Prep book collection right by the reference desk with a huge arrow pointing towards the friendly-looking librarians for more help.

We often think long-term in the library and that is as it should be for the work we do with preservation of access to knowledge, sustainability of our funding, and building of relationships. But we also need to think about what we can do that is more ephemeral, but no less important, to get timely information, services, and resources in front of our patrons in ways that are appealing, well-designed, and fun. The two ways of doing and thinking can happily coexist and support each other.

So remember the importance of timely design and synergies the next time you have to design a new display, decide where to hang promotional materials, or move a collection.

Now, if you’ll excuse me, I’m off to get an ice cream cone. Allons-y!

Back by Design

/ dwakimoto

header image that says back by design

Happy Friday! Can you believe it is almost June? I know it’s been quiet on this blog for awhile, but I won’t apologize since it’s due to the wonderful little person with the adorable hands below:

photo of baby hands

But now I’m back, as the title of this post says, and ready to get back into the work of design and libraries. So what does that mean for this blog?

Well, I’m going to be posting more often (and hopefully will remember to share some more stuff via Twitter, too). I’m working on a lot of events, promotions, and communications for my library so I’ll have plenty to share graphic design and communication wise here.

So get ready for thoughts, advice, and commentary on a wide range of design trends, projects, and things. Oh, and probably some sharing of articles, books, and such that I’m finding inspiring as I ramp back up into all things in the library world again.

So, thanks for being patient while this blog was on hiatus for a bit and welcome back to more news, notes, and library thoughts. It’ll soon feel like we’ve never left the conversation.

Allons-y!

Friday Design: Simple Handout Formatting

/ dwakimoto

Happy Friday, dear readers! I hope your week has been gentle to you and you have a relaxing weekend ahead. I can hardly believe we are now three weeks into the semester and a week into September. The time really does fly. Today I wanted to share a quick project I was working on that will hopefully provide some inspiration for the next time you need to create a handout.

As I’ve said before, no project is too small for great design and it doesn’t take really any longer to create a great handout than a poorly designed handout, especially when you keep it simple. I was updating a handout I used in a previous term for a colleague and thought I’d share that today with you. Below is the first page of the handout:

image of the first page of a two column handout for evaluating sources

The handout is simple and clear with lots of resources that students can use after the workshop on evaluating information sources. The clarity comes from the consistent, two-column design that separates the title of the source from the URL and short description. This is easily set-up with two guidelines and a couple of textboxes in a program like Publisher or InDesign.

Notice that the left column is right aligned and the right column’s text is left aligned. This set-up is seen often in movie credits and allows for the information to interact with each other in a way that connects the titles with the additional information without being visually overwhelming.

One typeface, in multiple sizes and weights, is used throughout. This also lends to the simplicity of the design, plus it saves time from having to match typefaces. Keep the sizes and weights consistent for titles and body text to again make the handout clear.

Two icons from the same set are used to give some visual interest and these are also aligned to the guidelines, keeping the page’s structure consistent.

In all, a quick, clean, easy-to-reproduce handout for a workshop whose structure can be reused with minimal changes for a variety of handouts.

So, what are the takeaways?

  1. Keep things simple: 1 font, graphics from the same source, easy to align structure/guidelines
  2. Make the information the star of the handout: resources are key here and should be easy to find on the page
  3. Good design is possible with any canvas: handouts are often used, but overlooked canvases for great design. Make your handouts stand out in a good way to show that you care.

Hope that Friday design tip is useful for your next handout project.

Now, a bit of fun, in case you’ve missed the Neil Gaiman and Chris Riddell essay in pictures on why we need libraries, you should go read it now. Really, it is wonderful.

I hope you have a wonderful weekend, full of inspiration and delight. I’ll be back with more news and notes soon. Allons-y!

Random Friday Fun

/ dwakimoto

Happy Friday, dear readers! I hope you are well and this month has been a good one. It’s been a while since I’ve posted, for which I apologize. It has been quite the summer (more meetings than I care to recall and we started on the semester system which meant the quiet of summer was too short) and it is shaping up to be quite the fall, too. But that doesn’t mean that we can’t find inspiration for our work and our designs even in the midst of everything.

So today, I wanted to share a few things that have come across my desk (literally and figuratively) that might be fun and inspiring to you, too.

First, I’ve been taking some time to sort, discard, and clean up my office in those spare moments that are too short to dig into a new design project, but long enough to get something accomplished. You know how it is. And I have to say, what a difference it makes. Papers seem to multiple in filing cabinets and on desks, so it is great to get pared down again. I always think the beginning of a school year is a great time to do a bit of refresh, so if you are tied to an academic calendar, too, give it a try. It might just free up some space, literally and mentally.

Second, if you are in the Bay Area, I have to recommend going to SF Center for the Book for a class, to see an exhibit, or maybe even go to the upcoming Roadworks to re-energize your creativity. I’ve taken a number of classes at the center and always come away with new ideas to incorporate into my design work, even though I’ve yet to be called on to bind a book or use my letterpress to create something for the library. I do have some signatures that need binding at home, though, so maybe this weekend would be a good time to do it…

Third and finally, because it is Friday and we could all use a good laugh, a somewhat oldie, but definitely a goodie video, “New Spice: Study Like a Scholar, Scholar”.

I hope you have a wonderful day and rejuvenating weekend. I’ll be back with more news and notes soon (hopefully). Allons-y!

Friday Design: No Project Too Small & Inspiration

/ dwakimoto

Happy Friday, dear readers! I hope your July is going well, you are avoiding the worst of the heat (if you are some place where it is hot) and you are using the long days of summer to plan and rejuvenate. I have a few thoughts today on small projects and some links for inspiration, so let’s get into it.

This summer is quite short at my university because we are switching from quarters to semesters. Because of that, I have less time than usual for projects and design work. But that doesn’t mean I’m not creating and using the quiet time I have to plan out improvements in our visual communications. One thing that has come home to me this summer is that no project is too small and every project deserves thoughtful design.

I strive to treat each project as an important piece of communication and deserving of great design. It doesn’t matter whether it’s a button, a flyer, or a tally sheet. Everything needs to be well-designed so it is functional, engaging, and puts the library forward in the best possible light. Two things in particular have caught my attention this summer: buttons and tally sheets.

First, we are trying to do more with buttons and need to work on our designs there. I’m considering the best ways to work through committee on these, since they will have to go through committee. It is hard to balance differing levels of design understanding and differing opinions (as I’m sure you know). So fingers crossed it turns out well because we should always be presenting a professional face through our designs.

Second, I’m involved with orientation for our frosh and transfers this summer, mainly handing out brochures (thankfully beautifully designed by our web designer), along with answering questions while our new students wait for their student ID cards. (side note: it is great to have a captive audience) While they wait, I’m also asking them to let me know what their favorite genres to read are by adding tick marks to columns on a piece of paper. Nothing fancy, but it will help as I develop our popular reading collection.

You wouldn’t think design would make a lot of difference in this case–as long as it’s clear and there is enough room in the columns for all the marks, it should be fine. Right? Not exactly. While many students read each column’s heading (the genre) carefully before marking what they liked, some simply marked the first column without reading anything–even though there was no pressure to mark anything and everyone got offered candy whether or not they wanted to participate.

The result? An overabundance of tick marks in the first column. This isn’t helpful at all. So in the next orientation, I’m going to mix up the order of the columns and see what happens. On the plus side, it’s accidental design research and a reminder that no structural design decision, no matter how small, is inconsequential.

Now, let’s move onto some fun and inspiration for your weekend! 🙂

If you haven’t refreshed your desktop wallpapers for the month, check out the lovely, summery designs over at Smashing Magazine. And do yourself a favorite and make these delightful strawberry pie bars from Joy the Baker while there are still delicious, fresh strawberries at the store. And, if you are working on infographics for your library, check out this list of some of the most creative from last year to inspire your next project.

I hope you have a great weekend and create something wonderful. I’ll be back soon with more news and notes. Allons-y!

Friday Thoughts: Incorporating Creativity

/ dwakimoto

Happy Friday, dear readers! I hope that you have a wonderful weekend planned and, if you are in the academic world, that your semester/quarter/term is over (or nearly over). It’s been a bit quiet around this blog lately, but I’m hoping and planning to write more over the summer. This last term has been a bit of a time (I still can’t believe it’s the beginning of June already) and while I’ve done some graphic design work and thought often about what I want to share in this space, reports, meetings (upon meetings upon meetings), and other fires came up that pushed this small space to the edge. So today, I wanted to reflect a bit about something that’s been on my mind for awhile as we wrap up this school year–incorporating creativity into my work.

It’s probably not a surprise (far from it, in fact) that I believe creativity is so important to work and life and librarianship. What got me down this particular musing about how I’ve incorporated and define more and more of my work as creative was a meeting a few weeks ago. Also, probably not a surprise for readers, I’m not a fan of meetings especially those without agendas or action items. In this meeting, one person tried to divide the group into the creatives and non-creatives. And this, dear readers, rankled me greatly and (again, no surprise), I said so.

I believe truly, completely, and without reservation that everyone is creative and a creative. To label some people as not creative is not just untrue but detrimental not only to the person but to the community as a whole. How many of us can remember a time when someone said we weren’t creative enough? A good enough artist? Musician? Thinker? Writer? Probably most of us and those comments, often said in such an offhand manner that the speaker doesn’t even remember, can stifle our creativity for years if not lifetimes.

And that’s just wrong.

And it’s not just me who says it’s wrong. And if you need some words from those more eloquent than I (and with research to back it up), I suggest you read the work of Brene Brown and Big Magic by Elizabeth Gilbert. Their works are inspiring and help when you’re feeling down or when someone implies (or outright says) you’re not creative.

We need creativity in our work and in our libraries, desperately and always. So what does this have to do with my work? For that, I have to tell you a story.

My first written piece as a professional librarian (in a now-defunct online space) was about the importance of play in academic librarianship, about not taking ourselves too seriously and seeing where we could be creative in what we do. And I got a comment on it that said such frivolity was not welcome in academia in the library and basically that I should get serious.

I’m serious about a lot of things, dear readers, and my work is one of them. But there is no need to sacrifice creativity or playfulness or (heaven help us) fun, in order to be serious about our work. On the contrary, being creative and having fun allows us to do better work and be as creative as we need to be.

Which brings us back to why I’m thinking about how much more I’ve incorporated creativity intentionally into my work in the last decade (yes, in July I’ll have been doing this librarian thing for a decade) and why I won’t let others label people as not creative.

I surround myself with visual inspiration in my office–postcards from trips, quotes from books and people I admire, photographs and buttons, origami from friends, and a dozen other little mementos that make me smile. And lots of these things show up in my work, in color schemes, and typography, and emotions for my designs, but also in what I want to bring to my teaching, to my writing, to my outreach, and to the dozens of other projects we do in the library that we may not think of as creative works, but truly are.

Incorporating creativity and being willing to try new things, ideas, ways of conceptualizing, are what have kept me engaged and serious about my work as a librarian. What have kept me from the cynicism and keep me coming back, even when some days it feels like I’m not making a difference, not having my expertise heard, not doing anything.

Creativity is what you make of it. It’s what you define it to be. Whether it’s creating a new flyer, engaging someone with a report they’ll actually read, or finding a way to reach a student where and when they need it. And it’s important, it’s vital, no matter what anyone else says.

You are creative. I am creative. We are creative.

And the library, the world, our community needs what we have to make and to offer.

Here’s to many more days and ways of incorporating that which inspires us, guides us, and moves us into our work and our lives.

I wish you, always, a wonderful, joyful, and relaxing weekend, dear readers. Thanks for reading and I’ll be back soon (with luck and determination) with some more news and notes. Allons-y!

Friday Fun: Prepare Yourself for Independent Bookstore Day!

/ dwakimoto

Happy Friday, dear readers! I hope you’ve had a good week and have a lovely weekend ahead. Just a few notes from me today as this week has flown by. Lots of workshops, meetings, and on-the-fly design work that I should share in the not-too-distant-future. But today, let’s talk about Independent Bookstore Day!

Tomorrow, Saturday (April 28th) is Independent Bookstore Day! This is one of my favorite days of the year (really)! If your Saturday plans at all allow for it, get yourself to your favorite indie bookstore and enjoy the fun. There’s often author readings, music, and swag that you can only get on Independent Bookstore Day tomorrow. This year’s offerings look particularly awesome. A couple of years ago I got a wonderful pencil case illustrated with bookstore cats (which often have the best literary pun names).

But more than that, it’s a day to celebrate and thank your local independent bookstore. And I do hope there is one in your town. Indie bookstores really are so much more than bookstores. They are community centers and great places to find books you never knew you needed but speak to you. So, step away from your computer (after you finish reading this post, of course), put down your mouse for one-click ordering, and go to your local indie and support it. Indie bookstores really are magical.

I’m completely, utterly, 100% biased on this, of course, and really don’t care. I love indie bookstores. We buy our books at our lovely indie bookstore, Books on B, which is run by the ever lovely and wonderful Renee. I even got my library to okay purchasing the books for our popular reading collection through Renee’s store this year, which was another way to support our local community.

So go forth and discover your indie bookstore. You never know what great conversations about books you might have actually standing in a bookstore versus staring at your screen and what fabulous new worlds you might discover in a book you’d never have picked up without the recommendations of an indie bookseller.

And, you don’t have to take my word for it. Check out Chuck Wendig’s post on his love for indie bookstores. Or, of course, there is Neil Gaiman who wrote, “What I say is, a town isn’t a town without a bookstore. It may call itself a town, but unless it’s got a bookstore, it knows it’s not foolin’ a soul.”

I hope you have a wonderful weekend, full of discovery at your local indie bookstore, and come back refreshed to your work with new creativity and inspiration. I’ll be back soon. Allons-y!

 

Friday Design Fun: Chosen Collaborations

/ dwakimoto

Happy Friday, dear readers! I apologize for the relative blog silence over the last few weeks. I hope you’ve had a good spring, thus far, and today I want to talk a bit about collaboration and design, how important it is and how wonderful it can be (if done well) or horrible (if done poorly). So let’s talk about collaboration.

I don’t know about you, but I hated group work when I was in school. No matter how good my teachers’ intentions, there was so little individual accountability in the groups that I often (okay, more like 95% of the time) ended up doing most of the work. Others knew I would do the work because I cared about my grade and took advantage of it and even when tasks were assigned, people often didn’t follow through. It left a bad taste in my mouth that has, unfortunately, been reinforced by more than a few committees I’ve been on since becoming a librarian. So you wouldn’t be surprised that sometimes I have issues with so much emphasis being placed on collaboration and group work, without equal discussion about accountability and equity within the group.

All that aside, I love collaboration when I have agency over who I’m collaborating with and for what tasks. I especially find it useful in graphic design work to have someone to bounce ideas off of and to critically go over designs to improve them before they are ready for final printing or launching online. While I’m not a fan of design by committee, I’m a fan of collaboration in design work. The same principles for making design collaborations work are the same for making any collaboration work, in my experience:

  1. Clear communication is key, as is individual accountability. Work out responsibilities and deadlines in the first meeting and check in often.
  2. Brainstorm together, then individually work on designs to bring back and compare and critique. Best thinking work still gets done individually and everyone needs time to have ideas percolate and come together.
  3. Be open and kind with critiques and work together on the edits. Also, give credit to the editors in any process. Too often only the designer gets credit and the editor gets ignored. Editing is hard, important work, too.
  4. Always praise and thank your collaborators publicly when your work together is complete. Everyone likes to be appreciated and it will help the next time you need collaborators.

At my work, I love collaborating with our fabulous web designer, Brooke, who is also a great graphic designer. We’re both deadline oriented (and hit our deadlines) and we’ve worked out good communication so we can get a lot done in a reasonable amount of time. Collaborating also gives us a chance to learn from each other and I think strengthen our own individual design work.

So, even if you’ve been burned in the past by group and committee work, give collaboration in your design work a chance. If you can pick your collaborators and maintain clear communication, you never know what amazing things you can accomplish together (and make your library’s visual communications more beautiful and useful in the process!).

And, if you haven’t changed up your desktop wallpaper yet, check out the lovely ones over at Smashing Magazine.

I hope you have a lovely weekend full of relaxation and rejuvenation. I’ll be back soon with more news and notes. Allons-y!

Friday Design: March News and Notes

/ dwakimoto

Happy Friday, dear readers! I hope you’ve had a good week and are looking forward to a lovely weekend. It’s been quiet around here as I’ve had a couple of particularly busy and fatiguing weeks, but I wanted to post some updates and design news so you know I’ve not forgotten about this site (and hopefully you haven’t either).

First, if you are in the East Bay today and have a free hour from 2:30 to 3:30 pm, stop on by the Cal State East Bay Library on our Hayward Campus and you can hear me talk about libraries and graphic design (and answer questions, of course). It should be fun and it would be great to not talk to myself in an empty room!

Second, if you need some inspiration for your designs, or just want to learn something fun, I recommend checking out Daily Infographic.  Even if you’re not creating infographics for your library, it’s a great site to get ideas about layout, writing clean, precise copy, and just learning some new information (and who doesn’t like that?). It’s good to branch out to find new sources of inspiration for our work, whether we are in the middle of designing a brochure or just in the brainstorming stages. I’m looking forward to sharing our new library exhibit with you next week (our web designer has outdone herself with the banners!).

Third, and final, if you haven’t seen The Temple of Knowledge video from StoryCorps, I highly recommend giving it a view. It’s a lovely reminder about the greatness of libraries.

I hope you have a lovely, relaxing, restorative weekend. I’ll be back soon with more news and notes. Allons-y!

Friday Design Fun: Icons, Book Talk News, and Inspiration

/ dwakimoto

Happy Friday, dear readers! I hope you have had a good week and have a fun weekend planned. Today, I have a few resources for icons and inspiration that I want to share, along with news about a book/graphic design talk I’ll be giving in March.

First, who doesn’t like a free, beautifully designed icon set? Better yet, who doesn’t like two? Check out this friendly office icon set over at Smashing Magazine. It looks like a great resource for using for various library handouts and guides. Also, if you use Adobe XD, you can get a free icon set to use there, by following this link and guide provided by Smashing Magazine.

Also speaking of graphic design (of course), I’ll be giving a book talk/graphic design in libraries talk at Cal State East Bay on March 16th at 2:00 pm in the Biella Room of the Library. This is a free talk, so please come is you are able and interested. I’ll be talking a bit about graphic design basics and how they apply to the designs we create in libraries. It should be fun, so I hope to see you there.

Finally, some inspiration, check out this cool water and ink drop calligraphy. It is soothing, inspiring, and pretty darn awesome.

I hope you have a wonderful weekend full of fun and relaxation. I’ll be back soon with more news and notes. Allons-y!