Happy Friday, dear readers! I hope your week is going well and you have a wonderful weekend planned. Can you believe we will be into August next week? How fast the time does fly! But that still leaves us at least a month of summertime to fill our inspiration tanks with so we can stay creative throughout the year. Today I want to share some inspiration for typography from store signs. One of the few things I like about smartphones (other than maps so I don’t get lost and Pokemon GO because it’s fun) is the camera. This isn’t because it in anyway replaces my DSLR for photography, but because it is great for quick shots of things that I might want to use later for design inspiration, as I’m sharing today.

I recently went on a trip to Ireland, which was fantastic, and one of the great things about traveling for me is seeing what the signs look like. (Yes, I am that kind of design geek.) I’m always interested and often inspired by what I see. Dublin is one of the great places to find signs that may inspire, especially in terms of typography. Below are some of the signs I saw that I thought were interesting and may inspire some new designs in my work.

I was quite taken with this sign from Beshoff, which is a fish and chips restaurant. This is a good example of integrating text with graphics in a way that works. It is simple with just the right amount of quirky without taken away anything from the readability. It’s easy to reproduce in only two colors, a plus for any branding, and would look good at many different sizes. Plus, I’m a sucker when it comes to flourishes and the old-time look when done well. What might I use this inspiration for? Maybe a header for an exhibit on campus history or community history in the library, or maybe as a juxtaposition between old and new in terms of library resources and services.

Of course, Dublin is also full of awesome signs for pubs as seen below for Brannigan’s

While I’d hate to read an entire paragraph in the same lettering style as Brannigan’s uses for its sign, as a pub sign it looks great. It’s different than what you might expect from a pub sign and the elongated letterforms gives it a bit of elegance. Mixing typography up so it isn’t the same cliched sans serif for everything, makes people stop and notice. Also, remember, with large display fonts, you can have some fun and use forms that would never work at smaller sizes or in larger bodies of text.

Il Fornaio’s sign is completely different from Brannigan’s. Instead of angular forms, here we have sweeping, rounded forms that invite people in, a good thing for an Italian restaurant. The use of a script-type font here brings a bit of romance to the sign while maintaining readability. It is a great contrast to many of the other more angular fonts used on modern signs. While I’m not as much of a fan of the smaller font used for the rest of the sign (I’d have gone with a simple sans serif for readability and contrast with the restaurant name), it still works and hopefully invites people to come in and enjoy a meal.

This sign simply screams Dublin. Nothing subtle here. From the name of the store to the inclusion of the iconic arches and lamps from the Ha’Penny Bridge to the emerald green, this sign lets you know you are in Dublin. And, I’m happy about that. Too much of the same type of design everywhere is boring. Context is important. Plus, the letterforms of this sign work well with the curved lines of the graphics. Nothing is too angular, even with the slab serifs. It’s easy to read, fun, and invites us to see what The Dublin Trading Co. has to offer. That’s a successful sign in my book.

So next time you’re walking around, remember to look up and see what inspiration you can draw from signage in your area. You never know what might influence and inspire your next library design or help you solve a design problem that looked intractable. Inspiration really is all around us, if we remember to look.

I hope you have a wonderful weekend full of delight, relaxation, and things (and people) that make you happy. I’ll be back with more soon. Allons-y!

Happy Friday, dear readers! Well, it’s been a summer. I was planning on being back with some posts a lot sooner, but was felled by a summer fever. But I’m back and wanted to share a design tip about alignment today. It’s going to be part of a series, maybe, on the low-hanging fruit in graphic design that can help you create better looking designs quickly. I believe it is John McWade of Before & After who talks a lot about low-hanging fruit in graphic design as a good place to start in cleaning up designs and I tend to agree. So consider this Friday’s Design your quick checklist for alignment on your next project.

So what are we talking about with alignment and why are we talking about it?

Alignment refers to how items on the page (text, graphics, borders, etc.) are positioned in relationship to one another and to the page in general. There are three basic overall alignments: center, right, and left. Everyone’s seen centered alignments; they are used almost as defaults on a lot of flyers and posters and are, of course used heavily in wedding invitations. Right alignment means the text block or image are aligned to a guide on the right side of the page creating a straight right side and ragged left. Left alignment is the opposite and how we read texts in English.

Got it? Great.

Alignment, and consistent alignment, is important for creating visual hierarchy and ensuring that it is easy for your reader to get the information they need from your flyer, newsletter, bookmark, website, etc. There are valid reasons for using each of the alignments described above, but we’re not going to get into that today. Instead, we’re just going for the super low-hanging fruit of consistent alignment.

Consistent alignment means that if you have a guideline (aka guide), you use the same one to align all your different components of your design. For example, if you are using center alignment, it means you pick one guideline to center everything on and you don’t change it. This is especially important (and looks especially egregious, if not followed) on small promotional items such as mini-flyers or handouts for library programs, for example.

So let’s move on to the low-hanging fruit of consistent alignment. If you every create a flyer or notice, don’t do what is shown in the example below. This example shows the start of a flyer for a computer workshop. What can you see that’s wrong with the alignment?

So what’s wrong with the above alignment? There is no alignment! Well, actually, there is alignment, just not among the various pieces of the design. So the text blocks themselves have left alignment. Notice how the left side of each text block is totally straight. However, the three components (computer graphic, date/time information, and workshop details) are not aligned with each other. It looks like the graphic and date/time text block might be going for centered alignment, but didn’t quite make it. And the bottom text block is just hanging out by itself.

So what should you do? Stick with a consistent alignment as shown below in the next example:

All three components are now on the same guideline so they are all left-aligned and aligned with each other giving a consistent and easy to read start to the flyer or handout or web announcement for this workshop.

Why use left alignment here instead of centered alignment? Left aligned components are more active than centered, which is a better choice for a computer workshop. But we’ll get more into that another time.

Your takeaway to remember is that in most projects keeping consistent alignment throughout the design is important for both creating useful information hierarchy and for creating a beautiful end product.

Simple, right? Totally. And that’s why it’s an important, low-hanging fruit in graphic design that you should remember and double-check for before hitting publish or print on your next project. And that’s Friday’s Design Tip.

Bonus tip: for some design inspiration, get outside and take a walk unplugged from all your devices. Summer is a wonderful time to get inspired outside, just remember your sunblock and bug spray! Enjoy and maybe you’ll find some fresh ideas breathing life into your designs soon, too.

Have a wonderful day and weekend. I hope you have plans (small or great) for a lovely weekend. I’ll be back soon with some more news and notes. Allons-y!

Happy Friday, dear readers! Can you believe we are over a quarter of the way through another year? I can’t. Time is speeding up, I think, which is worrisome. What isn’t worrisome though is the new batch of inspiration we have since it is now April. I hope that the beginnings of spring or fall, depending on where in the world you are currently, have inspired you in your work and in your creating.

One of the things I most look forward to is seeing the new batch of desktop wallpapers on Smashing Magazine each moth and the April desktop wallpapers are absolutely delightful. I’d love to change out the desktops each month on the library’s computers, but I’m sure the campus would be annoyed we weren’t using official branding. Ah, well. At least we can be inspired when looking at our office and home monitors.

Smashing Magazine has also posted their monthly inspiration column: April inspiration. So many lovely photographs and illustrations and the color combinations make me want to create so many new things. Right now, though, I’m working on mock-ups in black & white that can be classy, but springtime makes me crave color.

Any season change is inspiring, but some are more than others. Do you find yourself getting into a rut creatively? Not sure what to do to make your next handout more effective? Reaching for the same typefaces and color palettes for every project? Everyone gets there sometimes. What is important then is what you do to get out of a creative rut. Some people go to the museum, others walking, others reviewing their inspiration file. Me? I was feeling in a bit of a rut, especially as I don’t get to apply much of my love of graphic design in my work on a daily basis, which is a shame. So I decided to stretch myself creatively and take an introduction to artists’ books workshop.

It was just the thing I needed to start looking at the world in a slightly different angle and seeing how I could integrate different forms of art with bookbinding and maybe even a future exhibit at the library. So I want to leave with sharing a couple of photos from what I started to make at the workshop. The words are from the end of a quote from Ray Bradbury’s Zen in the Art of Writing, “It means you must still take long walks at night around your city or town, or walks in the country by day. And long walks, at any time, through bookstores and libraries.”

 

I hope you have a wonderful weekend full of time to refill your creative tanks and relax. I’ll be back soon with more news and notes. Allons-y!