Bloomsburg Public Library Internship Week 6

Week six of my internship in the Marketing Department of the Bloomsburg Public Library was a bit more productive and proactive then previous weeks. A lot of what I did this week revolved around outreach and promotion, both digitally and physically.

On Monday, I helped with preparation for the upcoming Raise The Region fundraising event which is a regional, yearly campaign set to take place the following week. I assisted in stuffing and sending out letters that were written to inform people about the event and encourage donations. It would be nearly impossible to send out a letter to every patron in our system so instead we focused on only sending them to individuals who had donated 100 dollars or more in the past year as well as members of the board and the Friends of The Library. It was interesting to see how organizations with such a large population of users strategize to reach their most likely donors. It wasn't just about sending information and begging for money, it was about maintaining a strong relationship with dedicated supporters. 

On Wednesday, I got to create my very first original graphic completely decided by me. It was a 16x9 graphic for Eid-Al-Fitr. Before I even thought of a design let alone opened Canva, I had to research the holiday itself. I learned that Eid-Al-Fitr marks the end of Ramadan, a month of fasting, and is a time of celebration, family gathering, and giving. After researching it's actual purpose, I looked at existing Eid-Al-Fitr digital celebration designs so I could be sure to make something respectful and relevant. I noticed some recurring themes; rich, deep color palettes, lanterns, crescent moons, stars, and imagery of Islamic architecture. 

Using these themes as inspiration, I created a design with a deep blue background, golden lanterns hanging from the top with star and moon hanging decorations as well, two floral accents in the top corners of gold and blue, a glowing moon centered near the top between the hanging decorations, and at the bottom I put a low opacity shadow of Islamic-style buildings. For the text, I wrote "Happy Eid-Al-Fitr" in softly glowing yellow text. I was really proud of how it turned out because it was really beautiful. Unfortunately, the design ultimately wasn't used because promoting Eid-Al-Fitr was decided to be too divisive for a small town public library. There is actually an ongoing discussion about limiting promotions/celebrations to federal holidays and, as an exception because it has been largely commercialized and stripped of it's original religious meaning, Christmas. Even though I think it would be stupid for people to be offended about a library promoting a holiday millions of people celebrate that they don't, I know the library has to balance a fine line between inclusivity and pleasing others so while I was a bit disappointed, I understood.

On Thursday, I worked on adapting existing 16x9 graphics for an 8x11 scale in order to promote a series of programs celebrating the library's 100th anniversary. The event mentioned in a previous post was a celebration on the actual day the library building was first opened 100 years ago and I thought that was the end of it, but they're actually doing six events in total over the course of the year with each requiring their own promotional material. However, each graphic did have some common visual themes; the library logo position over or next to a golden "1926-2026" banner, a thick red accent strip that date and time went on, and the library's contact information. The actual placement of these elements were not set and stone so each graphic did get some semblance of individuality. 

The first event took place a few weeks ago, but the second event is on April 18th and it's called "A Landmark Story: Our Town Library Building at 100 years," I designed a layout featuring the blueprint of the building in an arched frame on the left side of the page, placed the title at the top, description next the the photo, and the strip with the date, time, and QR code on the bottom. The logo and banner went right above the blueprint. For the third event, "The Van Tassel Legacy," on May 16th I used two historical archive photos of Sarah Van Tassel which I placed inside vintage-style frames. My favorite unique aspect though was a scan of her authentic signature which I placed right below the frames. Once again, the strip with such information went on the bottom while the logo and banner went right above the strip. The description of the event was next to the photos of Sarah.

The fourth event is "Librarians & Democracies" which will take place on June 27th. This one had a different structure, I used a photo of the library at the top with the America 250 logo on it, placed the red strip across the middle of the page, and put the description, logo, and banner under it. The final two events, "Women Leading The Way" and "Tales of The Library" didn't yet have full descriptions so I created template-style designs with spots where information could be plugged in later. The  "Tales of The Library" poster was the most interesting as I used an upside down triangle frame for a placeholder image.

Overall, I learned a lot this week about being cohesive for branding practices and how creativity operates in such a public setting where anything could set off anyone.

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