Happy Friday and Happy (Almost) Halloween, dear readers! So I think graphic design, and design generally, in libraries is a serious business. How we present ourselves visually, how well we communicate, and how intuitive our services and resources are to use are of great importance to the effective and efficient functioning of our libraries. However, just because it is serious doesn’t mean we can’t have some fun, especially so close to Halloween.

The first piece I ever got published when I became a librarian was a short piece about having fun as a librarian and how important that was to growth. I thought it was obvious. There’s lots of research about the value of play and how integral it is to work and life, especially if you want to be balanced and creative. I thought it would be a short article to get my feet wet and a piece that would help others see that adding some levity to their days could help out. Most saw it that way, but I still recall one comment that said fun and play had no business in an academic library and they’d never want to work with someone who thought that way. I guess not everyone is into playing and doing things differently. But in any case, I still think play is important in libraries and especially when we talk about design work. And what better time to think about play than on the eve of a holiday that is all about play and fun: Halloween.

So for the Halloween fun, here’s a spooky, fun, and somewhat scary look at monsters in literature. Be warned the banner image is a clown. If that isn’t terrifying, I don’t know what is.

Also, for Halloween fun, check out Smashing Magazine’s free Halloween icon set. Not terrifying, even kind of cute, icons that you can use for some last minute designs. Because Halloween means time for designing, right? 🙂

Back in the library, don’t be afraid to play with your designs and try new things. Even if you have a branding manual, you can still play. Sometimes events call for using Chiller in a huge font size on a banner announcing a costume contest or scary book reading. Sometimes you need to allow yourself the room to play with a new icon set for creating some lovely spook-tacular bookmarks to hand out for anyone checking out a frightful book for the weekend. And sometimes you need to tell yourself that even if you get it wrong with your designs, it isn’t the end of the world and no one is going to ship you off as fodder for the Headless Horseman. You always have next time to get it right and you’ll probably learn something along the way.

Design in libraries is serious business, but it is also great fun. Don’t lose track of that and I know you’ll not only create some great designs, but you’ll also enjoy the process.

Hope you have a fantastic, fun-filled, beautifully designed weekend. Allons-y!

Happy Friday! I hope your week has gone well, dear readers. It was the first week of the quarter here, or rather the first two days of classes. Technically called Week Zero, but that doesn’t seem to make much sense to me, so I call it the first week. But that is neither here nor there. Today I just wanted to share a few thoughts about design and some other interesting things as we move into autumn.

First, I really think everyone needs to read this article from Smashing Magazine on how designers can stop being an afterthought. It’s a really good article, so I’ll just wait here quietly until you get back. Read it? Great. So I think that even if librarians don’t consider themselves designers, this article is really useful for our work. One of the things that I was told through my research so far into librarian designers is that they sometimes feel that design is an afterthought in their libraries. Too many people equate design with making things pretty instead of solving problems. So it is time we change that in libraries, and not just for the huge projects at big libraries with lots of funding and splashy programs. We can change that and we need to change that.

There are a lot of great suggestions in the article to re-educate people about design work (it’s not about the decorations), re-brand design work as strategic (because it already is), and improve our own work (because we can always improve). I love the reminder to talk the jargon of the administration and decision-makers at your library. If they don’t have a background in design, they can just be hearing “decoration” or “make things pretty” in their heads instead of “functional user interface” or “accessible, intuitive wayfinding.” Use the jargon you need to get the job done. Everyone at my university is always talking about strategic planning, so much talk about strategic planning, that it is a great place to jump in with strategy talk about design, especially since part of our planning is involving revamping our library’s website.

As librarian designers, we solve problems. Design, graphic design, all design solves problems and gives us the ability to communicate better. So let’s look at being the sometimes afterthought as a problem to solve and get on it.

Since it is autumn, I just had to share this fall foliage map. I’m looking forward to seeing the trees outside my office window turn colors again this year.

Also, because I don’t yet want to let the feeling of being able to travel anywhere through my summer reading slip away, I have to share this lovely image from This Is Indexed. Now if only I could read as much when the school year starts as I do in the summer, life would be even better.

And, finally, because it is Friday and Fridays need some fun, I give you this hilarious comic by xkcd.

I hope you have a fantastic rest of your day and lovely weekend. Allons-y!

Hello, dear readers! I hope your week is going well. Can you believe we are nearing the end of July? I can’t hardly either. I’ve just gotten back from a visit with family, which was lovely. Although the best part was spending time with my family, one of the fun things we did was visit downtown Flagstaff. I’d never been before and was happy to spot so many wonderful, interesting, and fun store signs while there. As I was writing about typography in my last post, it seemed too good not to share. So today, some thoughts on store signs before I head off.

I’m sharing four photos of signs I saw in Flagstaff that I thought were interesting. I was excited to see so many store signs and such a variety of typefaces used in the compact downtown. First up is a photo of the aspen loft artists’ sign.

I really like this sign (what would you expect but a lovely sign for an artists’ loft?). Although slightly difficult to see in this photo, the “t” in “loft” is actually an arrow pointing up, a fun touch for this sign. I also like the combination of the large serif “a” in “artists” combined with the rest of the lettering in san serif. A nice combination and nod to the older family of typefaces (serifs) along with the newer (san serifs). Also, the kerning is great. Nothing worse than a poorly kerned sign, as xkcd reminds us.

This next sign for Babbitt’s Mercantile is fun and reminds me of the typeface game we played in one of the letterpress classes I took when we tried to determine the feel of different type and when we would use it.

The typefaces picked for this mercantile store (a camping and outdoor gear store) make it look like it’s been around for a long time. The typefaces picked look like they could have been used in a flyer set with a platen press and fastened to the local news board. They are fun and work well as display type (not something you’d want to read an entire paragraph in, but great at large sizes for a name or headline). I was a bit sad not to see the same typefaces used on the store’s website, but they caught my eye walking around Flagstaff.

Being a college town, there were a lot of pubs and bars in downtown Flagstaff and they all had interesting signs. However, I had to show the sign for Uptown Pubhouse because of its coat of arms.

Doesn’t it look like it should be hanging in a street in London rather than in Flagstaff? The coat of arms says history and age, even though we can see that it is just over two decades old. The typeface is a serif, though one that looks a bit more modern than say choosing a Blackletter typeface. It is a striking sign that is also featured on the pub’s website, a nice tie for branding.

The last sign I wanted to share is something different from the pub and much more lighthearted in its use of type.

This sign is fun, light, and sweet, just like the candy (and gelato) found inside. The colors (pink and green), along with the typefaces chosen, make it look like an inviting and slightly silly place to cure your chocolate craving. It just goes to show that a typeface that would have no place on a sign for a Celtic-inspired pub or a mercantile can look just right for a candy shop.

So that’s it for me today in typography and signs. I love seeing custom signs with something other than the standard typefaces we see everyday when staring at our computer screens or reading a book. Display typefaces are so much fun, especially when used in creative ways that seem to convey the essence of a business. So much type, so little time! I hope you have a wonderful rest of your week, dear readers. Allons-y!