Cover Influence Book covers are designed to catch the eye and brand the book. Good covers hook the intended audience. Good covers communicate that they are part of a series. When you are working on a graphic design project related to a book, let the cover guide your design. Adopted Elements How to break up with your phone by Catherine Price, is this years pick for the Tuscarawas County One Book One Community. The minimal bold cover design was easy to draw design elements from. I adopted the colors of yellow, light blue, white and black text, a sanserif font, all caps titles, and speech bubble motif. I repeated these elements through all the marketing materials created for One Book One Community. No matter what project you are working on, if it has multiple parts work hard to keep your design consistant so that it is instantly relatable to each other piece of branding. Good design takes time. The initial designs for the trifold brochure, 11x17 poster, 8.5x11 flyer, and bookmark took 7 hours of concentrated work. I am not sure how much time I spent on the entire project, since I was working on it intermittently for weeks. After the initial promotional materials there were the #Tuscunplugs passport, social media posts, individual event flyers, several iterations of the bookmark... And numerous edits. Can we move this information to the backside, do we have room to add these events, what if we reworded this section, can we do it in blue? Editing is what makes your designs better, so this stage is very important. Having someone be able point out problems or suggest alternatives is awesome! I used to think I didn't want to do graphic design work because I would be too sensitive about my work, but it turns out I can handle it and I appreciate the feedback. I feel like I am working through a design and communication problem and having people to puzzle over the problem with me helps. What is One Book One Community? I'll just quote the description we use in our promotional materials, specific to my county. "One Book, One Community is a grassroots reading movement that aims to bring people together by giving them a shared experience. When we all read the same book we have something to talk about. One Book One Community's goal is to break down the barriers between different groups of people and to strengthen Tuscarawas County." In my county each library sends a representative to be on the OBOC comittee. Every year the committee chooses a socially relevant book and sometimes a picture book companion to involve younger children. In 2016 I was on the comittee when we picked the Christmas Jars by Jason F. Wright.
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Why Board Games? Board games are amazing at bringing people together. In a time were we are often focused on our little black mirrors we sometime take for granted opportunities to engage with our friends and families. At least I know I do. So I rediscovered board games as a fun and entertaining way to set aside time for the people in my life who are important to me. Currently board games are going through a revival. Board game cafe's have become a popular meeting place. I visit Sapphire City Board Game Parlor for it's atmosphere and friendly and knowledgable staff. It is an hour away from where I live in a small town, and I wished that I could bring a taste of that experience to my community. I work at Dover Public Library that finished renovations earlier this year opening up its space to be more inviting. My first thought when I saw the large tables next to the wall of windows was, this space is perfect for playing board games. So I wrote a proposal to bring board games to the library, and it was met with overwhelming support. The Friends of the Dover Public Library donated money to purchase the initial collection and I was tasked with the acquisition and processing of materials. Selection Considerations I chose board games that would represent diverse gameplay mechanics and themes as well as variety in player count, from games that could be played solo to games that can be played by larger groups. My goal was that most of the games should be playable in 1 hour or less, though 2 longer running games did make it into the collection. I also chose games that were highly recommended and many of them are considered gateway games. I also played most of these games at Sapphire City, before purchasing them .
Links to Additional Resources
Here are some blog posts and websites I found helpful for starting this collection. Board in the Library series Circulating Board Game Collection 5 lessons from the library: circulating board games (one year later) Board Game Geek The Dice Tower Rahdo Runs Through Watch it Played |
AuthorMallory Thompson, assistant librarian at Dover Public Library and graphic design librarian aka designbrarian. Sharing graphic design relevant to the library with my fellow librarians and book lovers. Archives
September 2019
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