Happy Friday, dear readers! Another day, more things to do. It sometimes seems like the to-do list grows faster than we can get things done and if you’ave added sign-making to your list of things to do, today’s design tips are for you. I want to just take a bit of time to talk about signs, but specifically signs that run their type vertically.

You’ve probably seen a banner or sign like the one below before. Either attached to a lamppost or held up at a march or rally. Tall, slender signs sometimes call for running type vertically. You shouldn’t stack type vertically–you know, one letter on top of another without rotating the letters–but sometimes it does make sense to run type vertically given space constraints. But is the sign below easy to read?

I’d argue that it isn’t. We won’t get into issues of typeface choices, but just focus on how to properly run text vertically on a sign. When do you ever read from the bottom to the top on a sign? Rarely, if ever, I’d guess. It goes against just about every natural reading instinct we have when reading and every design idea about information hierarchy. When reading English, it is most natural to read from left to right and top to bottom. If you are going to run text vertically, so we have to tilt our heads to read it, you need to make your text so we read it from top to bottom.

Where do you see this done correctly? On bookspines, of course. The photo below is of part of a bookshelf in my office. Notice that every spine that runs the text vertically does it so the viewer reads from top to bottom.

This is the logical way of placing text to make it easy to read and gives it more impact. Don’t work against your readers natural reading habits for creating signs. Use them to reinforce your message.

So, whether you are making a sign or banner for your library or one for yourself, run your text properly from top to bottom if you need to rotate your text. Don’t stack the letters without rotation and don’t make us, your readers, read from bottom to top. And that’s your quick design tip on sign-making today. I’ll be back with more design tips soon.

Until then, enjoy some lovely February graphics in the form of Valentine’s Day Icons and February desktop wallpapers, both from Smashing Magazine.

I hope you have a wonderful weekend, full of creativity, productivity, and meaningful interactions. Remember, graphic design can seem a bit frivolous, but that’s only if you don’t harness its power for communication and for action and for resistance. As Neil Gaiman reminds us, “Make Good Art.” Allons-y!

Hello, dear readers! I know I haven’t been posting as regularly and I’m sorry if you haven’t been able to get your usual graphic design and library fix from this blog. But, as others much more eloquent and wise than me have already written and said, it is hard sometimes to see the point in writing about such things as writing or design or art when it seems like everyday brings a new crisis for civil liberties and human decency and the list goes on and on. But we all also know that art can build community and can help with the resistance. So to that end, in addition to the protesting, and donating, and activism that I know is taking up a lot more of my time than it did a couple of weeks ago, I made a poster–just a simple poster, but I hope it can help.

Here it is:

It’s simple and straightforward. HT to the other artists and libraries, like Olin Library at Cornell University, who have already created and posted signs and statements of welcome. This one is mine and it can be yours, too.

Click the image and get the link to the PDF. Feel free to download, print, and post at your library. It prints on regular letter-size paper in black and white (because we all know that printing in color can be a no-go for budgetary reasons). Share it with others.

I’m going to be working on a hand lettered one, too, but that will take longer to finish and we don’t really have the luxury of time right now.

It’s a small act of resistance. It’s a small thing to design. But welcoming others is big. Reminding people that the library is for them is big. Being stronger together is big.

Libraries and librarians are amazing and we need to remind everyone we are here for them. We need to remind ourselves, too, that we are not alone.

Design matters. Communication matters. Reaching out matters. I’m going to keep reminding myself these truths and make my creative acts matter.

I hope your day goes well, you find community and purpose in your work, and you use whatever talents you have to help others feel welcome and that they belong. Allons-y!

Happy Friday, dear readers! I hope you’ve had another lovely week and a wonderful weekend planned. I’ll be at commencement this weekend as the library’s flag bearer for one of the ceremonies, so we’ll see how that goes. But since we are getting into the weekend and summertime, I wanted to share some design inspiration for summer projects. Summer is a wonderful time to plan and to create with the longer days giving us more daylight for work-playing, so let’s get inspired!

Do you ever worry about not being successful enough, soon enough? If so, you’re not alone. But I hope these two videos help you remember: don’t worry if you’re not a creative success by 30 (see the second part of the video essay here). Go ahead and watch; I’ll wait here. Now that we feel better about how long the journey can be for creative success, let’s use that as inspiration to keep practicing. 🙂

If you need a bit more inspiration to continue working on your creative activities–whatever form they take–check out this great post on how you might be feeling stuck if you are not being used properly. This is so simple and so true and has helped me refocus my energies on things that really do use my talents instead of just doing everything that other people want to drop at my desk.

So now that you are inspired to do some creative work, check out this long, wonderful article full of color inspiration from Smashing Magazine. Summertime feels like a great time to experiment with color (must be all the crazy color combos seen on swim towels and popsicles). What designs can you jazz up in your library with some new color combinations? Maybe those handouts that no one has touched in years? I know I have a list of design projects I want to complete this summer for my library, starting with fixing an advertisement we run in the student newspaper that I’ll be sharing with you soon.

I’ve heard that it is also football season (aka soccer in the USA) so wanted to share this great Soccer (aka football) icon set because we can always use another great icon set to use for designs.

Also, I don’t know about you, but when I’m deep into design work, I often start triple-guessing myself about sentence construction (maybe it’s just me) so I love this tool: FoxType Sentence Tree for sentence diagrams. So cool and works in real time.

I hope you have an inspiring weekend and have some great projects that feed your creative energy. I’ll be back soon with some more news and notes. Allons-y!

Happy Friday, dear readers! I hope that your week is going well and you feel settled in the new year. I’m still trying to remember to write 2016 on memos and papers, but feel like 2016 is already running away from me sometimes. Always so much to do and learn, especially in libraries. Today I wanted to talk a bit about dreams, because it is that time of year, and a bit about design, because libraries should always be talking about design.

First, a couple of things to share: Month in Typography by I Love Typography and All Steps Lead to Somewhere by This is Indexed. Both of these have been on my mind in this new year as we consider design and branding, promotion and outreach, marketing and engagement at my library. Sometimes it is overwhelming when I think about what I can accomplish today or this week (especially when teaching and considering all my other duties). But it is important to remember that we can only accomplish anything by taking the first step, no matter how small, or continuing on with a long-term project.

I’ve been thinking a lot about designing and dreaming in this new year as we are talking about how to do better outreach and publicity for the library, which obviously means we need to design publicity materials. In order to do this properly, we have to have space to dream and to create. Sometimes this seems impossible with all the urgent, and even important, tasks we are called on to do everyday as librarians. However, if we don’t reserve the time for thinking and dreaming, we come up empty when it is time to create posters and flyers and handouts for our events. And herein lies one of the great challenges of librarianship. There is always more to do, so how do we carve out time for these design projects? I don’t think anyone has the perfect, one-size-fits-all answer, but I know that we have to make space for designing if we are going to succeed at my library in promoting and engaging with our community.

For me, the space to dream and design almost always happens in the morning before most of my colleagues arrive at the library. I have to resist the siren song of checking my email and instead use the first hour for whatever design project I’m working on, or paper I need to write, or data I need to analyze. I have to be protective and even stubborn about keeping this space open for my work or it is too easy for it to get lost in the shuffle of all the urgent tasks that need my attention. I’m a morning person, so it works for me. Do what works for you. If you are creative later in the day, use that time. Will  it work every day? Of course not. But if you can line up more days than not for working on your projects, you’ll be amazed what you can do.

And you know, the funny thing about being deliberate about designing my time like that? I still manage to get all the urgent stuff done, too, but feel better at the end of the day because I’ve gotten further along on my important projects, too. Work really does expand to fill time, so design your time so you have as much control as you can.

I hope the new year brings you many opportunities to dream and to design. I hope you turn your dreams into wonderful projects to share with the world. I hope you find great satisfaction, and even joy, in your work this year. I’ll be back with more news and notes soon. Allons-y!