Design

Projects, Projects, and More Projects

/ dwakimoto

Happy Friday, dear readers! Also, happy first day of spring! I don’t have much to say on the spring front other than I wish we’d get more rain in the Bay Area so that gardening can be a thing this year. But one thing that spring does make me think of is starting projects, both at home and at work, so I thought I’d share a few thoughts on projects today.

Although it should be self-evident, I like the reminder from Lifehacker that you can’t make time for more new projects without changing your priorities. Time really is the one non-negotiable constant in our lives and you can’t just cram more stuff in each day without something giving. It is really important, whether at work or at home, to determine what you can actually get done before taking on something new. No one wants to be the person that drops the ball on a project or is so stressed that they make others around them stressed. I think being mindful about your priorities and what you take on is key for maintaining (or creating) a balanced life that is challenging and rewarding.

Also, on that note, it is said a lot, but is worth repeating that stressing yourself out by running around like a chicken with your head cut off doing too much is not helping anyone. There should be no guilt attached to actually prioritizing time to rest, to recharge, and to read something that isn’t related to work. I always think it is sad when my fellow librarians are too busy and tired to read for fun, something that probably led us into the world of working with books in the first place.

This new year has been a year of many projects, especially research projects for me. It has seemed like all opportunities got dropped in my lap at once so I’m having to be very disciplined about timelines and deadlines for each project. Could I take on another one at this point? Not without seriously compromising the quality on the other projects I’m doing. I have to remind myself, and I’m sure others do too, that it’s okay to say no. Better say no than not be able to follow through for your project team.

To me the topic of projects is always tied to creativity because I think we can be creative in most of our work. I wanted to share this other article from Lifehacker on five creativity myths. While I don’t agree with everything in the article, overall it is a good reminder that creative people aren’t just born that way and the rest of us are out of luck. We can all do things to up our creative minds so we can add new twists and ideas to our projects. I think about this all the time when working on graphic design projects at work or when I’m trying to figure out how to best conduct a study for a research project. Have fun and don’t let the naysayers of the creative world get you down.

And because it is the first day of spring, I had to share a Joy the Baker recipe that says spring to me: classic lemon bars! I made these a few weeks ago and they were delicious. Her cream cheese pound cake recipe is also fantastic with some homemade jam as a spring time tea treat.

I hope you have a wonderful day and weekend, dear readers! I’ll be back soon with some more news and notes.

Type and Design

/ dwakimoto

Happy Friday, dear readers! I hope you’ve had a lovely week and are managing to stay healthy. The cold and flu are going around our library so I’m hoping you’ve been spared. Today I want to share some articles and such about type and design–two of my favorite topics.

I love typography; that’s no secret. But what I really love is good typography and unexpected, but amazing uses of typography. I love books on typography and I’m one of those people who can definitely spend hours looking for the perfect font to use in a project. I’m also one of those readers who is driven bonkers when a book doesn’t include a note about which font was used in setting the type, but that is really neither here nor there.

What is important is that for those times when we don’t want to take hours looking at fonts or deciding how to set type, there are handy cheatsheets and guidelines. I quite like this infographic on the design rules for text. Learning these tips will set you well on your way to artfully combining fonts and communicating well textually on everything from business cards to posters.

Type, when used well, can trigger emotions and moods in the viewer and help you engage library users, so it is important for librarians to understand at least the basics of typography. Plus, it is just a lot of fun and you can amaze people when you talk about kerning and leading and whether you are a fan of slab serifs or not. (Well, maybe not amaze people, but you will be able to talk coherently with designers and know what to consider the next time you design with text.)

While typing on a computer may be a quicker way to write a note (and almost essentially for designing graphics for the library), there is nothing better than receiving a handwritten note. I think everyone should always have with them a pen they like for writing and for encouraging more writing throughout the day. I love this post from The Well-Appointed Desk on the Top 5 Pens under $5. This is a great, fairly inexpensive way to branch out and write with something other than the last free pen that you got from a vendor. 🙂

I had to share probably the best resume design I’ve ever seen: top-secret resume. Getting a resume that was that thoughtfully designed would be a huge improvement over many that I’ve seen. Plus, super-fun.

Finally, because it is almost the weekend and I think weekends should involve sweet things, I wanted to share Joy the Baker’s recipe for extra nutty dark chocolate fudge brownies. They look so scrumptious that I might have to bake them this weekend.

I hope you have a fantastic weekend full of things that make you smile. I’ll be back soon with some more news and notes. Allons-y!

Graphic Design and Librarians: ONW Recap and Some Links

/ dwakimoto

Happy Friday, dear readers! I hope you had a lovely week and have a great weekend planned. Today I want to share a quick recap of my experience last week at the fabulous Online Northwest Conference and some links to some tools and articles related to my talk subject: graphic design.

I have a fond spot in my hear for Online Northwest. It was the first conference where I had a proposal accepted after I became a librarian and I think it is a great one day conference. After attending that first conference, I hadn’t been back in years due to budget issues for professional development, etc. So I was excited to make it back this year to speak on a topic near and dear to my heart: graphic design in libraries. I was thrilled that so many people came to my talk and I got some great feedback. If you’d like to see my slides they are here and my resource list is here. I apologize if the slides don’t make a lot of sense. I practice my talks a lot before giving them, but never write out an entire script.

I’m working on some research and other talks on graphic design currently, so expect to see some more information here soon. In other graphic design news, I wanted to share this interesting article on 8 cities that have their own distinctive fonts. I’m quite a fan of Berkeley’s Rennie Mackintosh font.

If you are into design, you’ll probably enjoy viewing the slideshow on 36 visual content creation tools especially if you are looking for a new tool to play with in your next design.

Also, Lifehacker’s post on what creative professionals do that separate them from the amateurs is well worth a read. There are good ideas here even if your job isn’t designated as “creative” or it isn’t your entire job.

I hope you have fun designing some new things for your library or redesigning some old. I’d love to see your designs, so drop me a line in the comments below. Until next time, I hope you have a lovely weekend full of things that delight and inspire you. I’ll be back soon. Allons-y!

Designing in the New Year

/ dwakimoto

Happy Friday, dear readers! I hope you had a lovely week and are looking forward to an even better weekend. I managed to get a cold, but am recovering and looking forward to a relaxing and rewarding weekend. But before we get there, I want to share some ideas and resources for designing in this new year. “Designing in the New Year” could mean so many things: interior design in our libraries and homes, designing more effective time management in our unending work-life balance struggles, website design as we throw out the old and bring on the new, and so on. Today, I want to talk a bit about graphic design and libraries and share some fun resources I’ve come across.

To get you in the mood for a bit about graphic design and libraries, I highly recommend looking through 50 best images on books, reading, and libraries. These are lovely pieces of design and quite wonderful. They should make you smile and everyone could use a smile on a Friday. I’m totally with the reader: “Yeah, so what if I rather read than go to a bar? Deal with it.” That is totally me. Also, these sayings and designs make me want to design something new for my library, too!

I may be on a design kick this year as my research time finally opened up (or so I thought) so I would have time to look into librarians and graphic design. Many other research projects have also come up this year, already, but I’m not giving up on my design research because librarians design all the time and I’m rather interested in it all. I mean, look around any library and you can see dozens of handouts, bookmarks, flyers, event posters, newsletters, and webpages. There are so many examples of graphic design in libraries and very often librarians, who have a dozen other duties to do, turn into de facto graphic designers for their libraries. So if we are designing stuff for our libraries, which can be both a joy and a burden, let’s at least design some nifty things.

So this year, expect some more posts about design in libraries, specifically graphic design, on this blog as I work through my research and some fun examples, too. For now though I just want to share some fun icon sets. Because, really, it’s time to step away from the clip art, put down the Comic Sans, and get into the big leagues with our designs. So go check out these two icon sets available via Smashing Magazine: free Dashel Icon set and free tourism and travel icon set. So fun! Doesn’t it just make you want to create something?

I’ll be back next week with some more news and notes. Oh, and if anyone is coming to Online Northwest in February–and I do hope you do– I’ll be there and presenting on graphic design. I’m in the first session, so stop on by my talk and say hi. Allons-y!

Thinking about Everyday Design

/ dwakimoto

Happy Friday, dear readers! I hope you have had a lovely week and have a great weekend planned. Today I want to take a few minutes to discuss something near and dear to my heart–design. More specifically I want to talk about everyday design. Since I’m a librarian and not a professional designer, I can’t talk about professionally designing logos or fonts or things like that, but I can talk about using good design in creating things for the library that are beautiful and functional. So today I want to share with you a few design articles, resources, and thoughts.

It is no secret that I’m a fan of the I love Typography blog. It is a great blog of font news and interesting notes about typography. I love this short video on The Sign Painter. Doesn’t it just make you want to have beautifully hand-lettered signs made for your library? I can just see some gorgeous signs painted on our windows in the front of the library welcoming students back from the summer and into the library.

Speaking of beautiful design and just beauty in general, you should really check out the winners of the 2014 Photo Contest by National Geographic. They are absolutely beautiful.

If that inspires you to think more about your everyday photography or just design in general, you might be interested in Lifehacker’s article on three basic design principles everyone can use in everyday life. Some good tips to think about.

Also, when talking about design, we can’t help but talk about Photoshop. I love working with Photoshop because it is so powerful and allows me to create what I need when designing things for myself and for the library. But I also know that Photoshop is very expensive and not in the budget for everyone and every library. That’s why I’m happy to share this article on the best free Photoshop alternatives. I’m looking forward to working more with GIMP.

I think that great design is a wonderful thing to behold and that we can all contribute to making the world a little more beautiful, at least in our library worlds, through learning design concepts and working to create beautiful and usable things for our libraries.

I hope you have a wonderful weekend. I’ll be back next week with more news and notes. Allons-y!

Spring Cleaning the Mind

/ dwakimoto

Happy Friday, dear readers! I hope that your week has gone well and you have a lovely weekend planned. It has been a busy week here, but I’m looking forward to some relaxing this weekend as well as participating in Welcome Day on Saturday to welcome admitted students to our campus. Today, however, I want to talk a bit about spring cleaning, since it is spring. I happen to enjoy cleaning up in spring, but today I want to talk a bit about taking the time to spring clean your mind.

Just as people begin to lace up their running shoes and dust off their hiking boots in spring to jump start exercise routines and shake out rugs and tidy up the house in spring, I think spring is a great time to also take stock of cleaning our minds. By this, I mean thinking about what habits, self-talk, and attitudes are hurting us that we need to clean out and what habits and attitudes we would like to cultivate to help ourselves and others. I know I have habits and attitudes that help me while others hinder my ability to be the best person that I want to be. And spring, with its lovely flowers and longer days seems like an ideal time, seasonally, to take stock and commit to a bit of brain cleaning.

One of things that I personally want to take advantage of is harnessing creative thinking, both at work and outside of work. I enjoyed Lifehacker’s article on how to cultivate a creative thinking habit. It is nice to know that we don’t have to be “born creative geniuses” but instead can practice being creative and go from there. I’ve found writing more and making time for more reading outside of the library and archives world has definitely increased my creative thinking. It also helps that my husband majored in creative writing and always helps me ponder how things in life could end up in a story or what we could do that would be interesting or surprising. It makes life more interesting, too.

One of the habits that I really need to break is worrying about things. Worrying doesn’t help, creates stress, and all this other stuff, which I tell myself every time I start worrying and doesn’t help all the time. So I’m making the conscious effort to spring clean my worry, not that it will all go away, and enjoy and try to spread calm. This second article from Lifehacker is a good read if you want to cultivate some good brain habits: how being humble, kind, and calm will make your life easier. And really, who doesn’t want an easier life?

I hope you have a wonderful weekend, dear readers, filled with as much cleaning, relaxation, and good times as you would like. I’ll be back soon with more news and notes. Allons-y!

Maps and Tea for Friday

/ dwakimoto

Happy Friday, dear readers! I hope that your week is going well and you have a lovely weekend planned. I apologize for not posting anything on Tuesday; I’ve had a cold all week and have been slower than usual in my work. So today, we have a mix of fun in the forms of maps and tea, with a useful bit of news thrown in. So let’s get to it.

I really love traveling, not flying, but traveling and so I quite liked looking at these 20 awesome stickers from when your suitcase told stories. Makes me want to start planning a trip already.

And although this map won’t help me with planning a trip abroad, it is still a wonderfully detailed map of the internet. It reminds me a bit of the maps created by xckd and are just lovely, too.

Speaking of maps, I am rather partial to this map of world’s biggest tea drinkers. We in the United States need to do better with our tea consumption. I always enjoy traveling in countries that drink a lot of tea as it is always easy to get a good cup of tea. And also, in tea news, I just wanted to share the link to the online home of one of my favorite tea shops, Tealuxe. Massive thanks to my friends still in Boston who keep me stocked with my favorite teas!

And, finally, because we should have a bit of useful tech news, the classic Bic pen now works on your smartphone. I think this is just a lovely combination of the physical and digital worlds, even if it is a bit pricey. Very nifty.

So I’m going to go now and hope that my voice doesn’t give out while teaching and then go drink lots of tea with honey this weekend. I wish you all the best, dear readers, and will be back next week. Allons-y!

Tuesday Fun

/ dwakimoto

Happy Tuesday, dear readers! Can you believe we are into another week already? The time really does fly, and I think it flies faster in autumn with the lead up to the holidays. So today I have a bit of fun for you, especially if you like printing presses and typography!

I love printing presses and all things letterpress. Therefore, it is no shock that I love this article and photos of the smallest printing company. Amazing.

Also, it is probably not surprising that I’m not a fan of Comic Sans. So I really enjoyed this list of 15 crazy fonts from Stephen’s Lighthouse that are even worse than Comic Sans. Enjoy the craziness!

I hope you have a wonderful rest of your day and week. I’ll be back on Friday with more. Allons-y!

Tuesday Fun

/ dwakimoto

Happy Tuesday, dear readers! I hope your week is going well. Today I just wanted to share a couple of links to some lovely, old-fashioned typewriter and typography fun. When I’m not in the library or archives, I love to work on design and letterpress projects. So it is probably no surprise that I’m sharing these resources with you today.

Although I’m the first to admit that I love word processing on a computer, there is something satisfying about the design of old typewriters that I don’t feel when I’m looking at a computer, no matter how well-designed. So I wanted to share this lovely site that has lots of photos of Antique Typewriters. No wonder some artists are recreating some of these very steampunk-esque looks for computer keyboards.

Also, who doesn’t like a good font? Use of a great typeface in a poster, handout, or website is a beautiful thing, while a poor use is often baffling. So go over to the lovely I Love Typography website to take a look at this week in fonts.

If you have favorite typography and/or design sites or resources, I’d love to hear about them in comments.

Have a wonderful day and week. I’ll be back on Friday. Allons-y!

Tuesday Fun: Typography

/ dwakimoto

Happy Tuesday, dear readers! I hope those of you in the United States had a lovely, relaxing, and fulfilling holiday weekend and that everyone else also had a good weekend (and good Monday). Today I wanted to share a couple of videos on typography that are just lovely.

The History of Typography gives a nice overview of the development of different typefaces.

From Paper to Screen is an absolutely wonderful look at the different uses of typefaces and type design on paper and movies.

I hope you have a wonderful Tuesday and rest of your week. I’m taking a vacation away from the Internet for a couple of weeks and will be back with more posts in mid-to-late September. Until then, I hope you have wonderful, productive, and fulfilling workdays and relaxing weekends. Allons-y!