books

ALA Store 50% Book Sale

/ dwakimoto

Hello, dear readers! I hope you and your loved ones are staying safe and healthy. It is hard to believe that it is almost the end of July. Time is squishy and flying by. More design news and notes soon, but I had to do a quick post to let you know…

ALA Store is having a 50% off sale on 75 titles! This is a great sale and my book, Easy Graphic Design for Librarians, is part of this sale! It’s only $27 until August 15.

So if you’ve wanted to buy a book on graphic design for librarians or wanted to buy a copy for a friend or colleague, now is the time (psst…it makes a great stocking stuffer, if you are thinking ahead and as long as you don’t mind it not actually fitting in a stocking).

There’s a lot of great titles on many subjects as part of this sale, so take a look and you might find your next library-related read.

Take care, be safe, and stay kind. I’ll be back with more design news and notes soon. Allons-y, friends!

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!

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: End of the Year Thoughts

/ dwakimoto

Happy Friday, dear readers! I know it is not yet the end of the year, but I wanted to write an end-of-the year blog post before I dive deep into the holiday baking madness to save my computer from desecration by cookie dough. So, here’s some (hopefully) semi-organized thoughts, ideas, and inspiration about this year, mostly design and library focused.

It’s been a very interesting year, some really high highs and really low lows. But I’m going to focus on the good to try to keep the stress low and inspiration high for all of us. However, first, a signal boost and reminder to continue the fight to save net neutrality and contact your representatives in Congress. Check out Battle for the Net to get information on how to do this.

I don’t know about you, but I skated a little too close to burnout a little too often this year because of various work projects and commitments. Luckily, I had a trip to New Zealand to look forward to and it kept me going. (Yes, it really is that beautiful–see photo below):

photograph of hillside in New Zealand

And now I can safely say that it is an amazing country and a fabulous place to travel. Beautiful, calm, and inspiring. The landscape, cultures, and experiences have inspired me and my design. So, I hope you are able to travel, too, near or far away to see and experience something new to inspire you. It was even worth the awful cold I got as soon as I got home (better now, thank goodness).

While a lot has been trying and difficult this year, design work at the library has been a bright spot. Sometimes it feels like I can’t influence much of anything, but there is always something to be done. The No Space for Hate mini-poster I designed and was able to share here was one of the best ways of using my graphic design skills for good this year. I hope you find ways of using your design skills in the new year for good and in ways to inspire and uplift others.

[Shameless self-promotion following]

My most exciting event professionally was the publication of my book, Easy Graphic Design for Librarians: From Color to Kerning, in November. I even got to give an interview about why graphic design is important for all librarians that you can read here. It still feels a bit unreal that I actually got to write a book on graphic design on librarians. I hope you and your colleagues find the information useful and inspiring.

The handwriting, lettering, and calligraphy trend is still going strong, which is making everything look at least a bit homemade. And, it’s great for those of us who love an excuse to learn more about calligraphy. It’s also great for creating new designs for your library. If you have any resources you love for lettering or calligraphy, I’d love to hear about them. I’m hoping to do some larger calligraphy pieces in the new year.

So, what’s up around The Waki Librarian for the new year?

I’m going to be finishing up some library graphic design research in the new year, which I’m excited about and will hopefully start some new research, too. I want to work on redesigning more of the library’s bookmarks and handouts in the new year.

I’m also hoping to run, Blind Date with a Book, at my library in February. I’m looking forward to writing up blurbs for the books (another great excuse to practice calligraphy). If you’ve ever done it at your library and have some tips, I’d love to hear them.

Also, I’ll be at Midwinter, probably hanging out at the ALA booth seeing if anyone is buying my book (but, you know, not the whole time). If you are going to Midwinter and see me there, please say hi!

As this may be the last post here for the year, I want to wish you a wonderful end of the year and beautiful start to the new year. May you have endless inspiration for design and time to make your inspiration real. May you be kind and have kindness shown to you, whether you are in the library or out in the wider world.

And thank you, dear readers for continuing to read my blog and join me on this journey through libraries and graphic design. I will be back with more news and notes about libraries and design. Allons-y!

 

Warning: Self-Promotion Because My Book is Now Available!

/ dwakimoto

easy graphic design for librarians book coverHello, dear readers! Sorry for the shameless self-promotion, but I had to share the news that my book, Easy Graphic Design for Librarians: From Color to Kerning, is now available for purchase in the ALA Store! That’s right, no more pre-order, it’s available now and you can buy it for yourself or your library. Yay!!! 🙂

Psst…ALA even sent out a press release.  I feel so official now.

I’m obviously excited about this and hope that the book is useful to you and your colleagues who do graphic design work for your library. It was a lot of fun to write and illustrate and I hope you have fun applying some of the tips to your design work.

Definitely exciting news to start the new month and give me some extra energy to keep writing with the start of NaNoWriMo, too.

So, I’m not great at this self-promotion thing, but please buy my book if you think it would be useful for your work and tell your colleagues and friends if you think it they’d be interested. And let’s create some amazing designs for our libraries!

Also, Happy November! Remember to refresh your desktop wallpapers with some of the beautiful, funny, and sweet wallpapers available over at Smashing Magazine. They’re great for design inspiration, too!

Thanks for reading, thanks for listening, and thanks for letting me ramble a bit about my book. I’ll be back to regularly scheduled design notes and tips soon. Allons-y!

Tuesday Fun

/ dwakimoto

Happy Tuesday, dear readers! Most Tuesdays could use a little more fun, but I think the first Tuesday after Daylight Savings Times begins (at least for some of us) requires a lot of fun. For today, I have some lovely information and articles about books because there are few things more fun than a good book.

In case you missed it at the end of last year, check out this infographic on what happens to your body after you start reading a book. I especially love the tongue-in-cheek writing even as it reminds us how powerful books can be.

Also in the realm of books and fun, check out Gizmodo’s article about 16 fun, escapist books to read. Looks like I have more titles to put on my “to read” list. 🙂

Springtime is always birding time, so I’m especially enamored of this poster illustrating the birds of North America. It is lovely. Though I’d suggest taking a Sibley Guide into the field is more practical for identification.

I’ll be back soon with some thoughts on libraries and graphic design, as we are about to mount our spring exhibit, as well as other news and notes. Until then, happy reading! Allons-y!

Tuesday Fun

/ dwakimoto

Happy Tuesday, dear readers! I hope you enjoyed your Leap Day and are ready for March! I am looking forward to Daylight Savings Time beginning and the start of spring. It is a good month. In celebration, let’s have a bit of fun today.

Who doesn’t like a good home library? No one who reads this blog, that’s for sure. I love having books around to read and to draw inspiration from. So I was in awe of this amazing home library and slightly jealous of what sounds like fabulous talks that happen in the middle of such a great collection. Check out this article and video on Cultivating curiosity in amazing home library. I think I need to go buy some more bookshelves.

It’s a new month and that means Smashing Magazine has released its monthly post of fantastic wallpapers for your desktop. They are beautiful and inspiring, as always. Take a few moments and refresh your desktop’s wallpaper. It’s the quickest bit of redecorating you can do.

Finally, check out this short, useful video from Lifehacker on how to pack for long trips. Spring makes me want to travel, so I couldn’t help but share this resource, too.

I hope you have a lovely Tuesday and rest of your week. I’ll be back soon with some more news and notes. Allons-y!

 

 

Bits and Bobs

/ dwakimoto

Happy Friday, dear readers! Do you ever feel like all you have to talk about are bits and bobs that somehow make sense in your brain, but don’t really seem to have a common thread that would make sense to anyone else? Yeah, this post is kinda like that. I just have a few things to share with you that may or may not be useful for you or your patrons, but they made sense to me, so I’m sharing them now.

I love books. No surprise there. I’m also a fan of adorable and useful infographics, so I had to share this one from BookPal. Yay, books!

Presented By BookPal

If you are trying to teach students that all websites that end in .edu, .org, or .gov are not necessarily great sources of up-to-date, accurate information, you might like this post from Gizmodo on a hidden treasure trove of dead .gov websites. Both fun to look at from a design/history standpoint and as a potential resource for teaching. Also, wow for some of those URLs.

As we get into the weekend, I felt like I had to share this Lifehacker article on the need to stop working on your day off. Like, really, just stop it and go out and do something fun. It will make you more productive at work, promise. I for one am looking forward to napping, reading some new books I just got from the library, and maybe even some baking this weekend. What are you looking forward to this weekend?

I hope you have a lovely weekend full of fun and relaxation. In the coming weeks, I’ll be posting about graphic design and libraries. Hopefully you’ll find some of it useful. Allons-y!

Books and Letter Writing

/ dwakimoto / 1 Comment

Happy Friday, dear readers! I hope your week has gone well and you have a lovely weekend planned. I just wanted to share a few pieces of news with you before we all head out of the office and into the glorious weekend. I rather hope that it is a wet weekend here as we’ve had no rain the past month and are still uncomfortably in a drought, but enough of that…to the books!

It never ceases to make me happy when I see a positive article about books in a magazine that is not dedicated to librarians. So I was rather happy to see this article, Paper Books Will Never Die, on Gizmodo. I love paper books, our overflowing bookcases at home attest to that, and am glad to see someone else writing about their love of the printed word, too.

Also in the realm of all things on paper and in print, this month is National Letter Writing Month! Are you excited? I certainly am and look forward to the excuse to send out letters and cards to family and friends for the rest of the month. Not that I need much excuse. I love writing and receiving cards. A dear friend and I have had a letter correspondence for almost 7 years since we live on opposite coasts and seeing her letters in my mailbox always makes me smile. Also, wonderful excuse to buy more stationery.

Not about printed books, but about books nonetheless, is this article, Google’s Slow Fade With Librarians. Wonderful read from Jessamyn West. Librarians always remember.

And, while not something related to books and letter writing, I had to share the Top 10 Lifehacker Posts of All Time. Because, really, who doesn’t want to read some good life hacking tips? Gives you more time for reading!

Hope you have a wonderful weekend, dear readers. Remember to make time to read, no matter what format you choose, and time too send someone a note to let them know you care. I’ll be back soon. Allons-y!

Happy New Year!

/ dwakimoto

Happy Friday, dear readers! I hope you had a lovely end to 2014 and a lovely start to 2015. Another year is here, fresh and ready for all our hopes and dreams. I’m hoping for a wonderful 2015 and working towards making it so. Here at The Waki Librarian, I’ll still be posting, though a little less frequently, as I work on some other projects and wanted to start of with some fun links for the new year.

I love book lists. They are great for finding new authors and books to read. I thought this interactive word cloud of the novels everyone should read was fun. I’ve read many of the books on the list and think I’ll need to check out some more. I’m planning on actually recording the books I read this year as I think it will be interesting to see what I’ve read when the year is through. I expect it will be an odd mix of fun reading, work reading, and random stuff I pick up at our local indie bookstore or on the new bookshelf at the library.

Also, I love the post on Stephen Abram’s blog on 2015 reading challenge. There are a number of fun lists of reading challenges for the new year to get you and your patrons inspired to read.

Finally, what would this post be if I didn’t share Neil Gaiman’s lovely post, New Year Wishes and Gifts? A bit duller and less joyful, I think. Go read what a master of writing has had to say over the last 15 years for new year wishes. Just lovely.

I know I said the blog would only be on hiatus for November, but December really went by so quickly, I didn’t have a chance to stop and post. So this year, I’m planning on writing a blog post a week, or so, on The Waki Librarian. Still sharing news and notes from the library world as well as cool tools and notes for technology and possibly some other fun stuff thrown in. I hope you have a wonderful day and weekend, that your 2015 is glorious and you have people around that you are happy to be with on this new year’s journey. I’ll be back soon. Allons-y!