Library Branding Design Project
The Touro-Harlem is a new library serving both the Touro College of Osteopathic Medicine and the Touro College of Pharmacy at new facilities on 125th Street. When we opened in September 2007 we wanted a way to brand our print and electronic materials as being from the library while still associating the library with the two separately administered schools we serve. As an initial step in our branding process, we contracted with a graphic designer to develop a proposal for a distinctive logo for the library. One of our requirements was that the logo should incorporate the Touro College emblem to indicate our official association with the College. With the proposal in hand, we successfully applied for an NN/LM grant to produce the logo and associated designs.
With our requirements already detailed in our request for proposal, the designer quickly prepared several draft versions of the logo for our consideration. Our staff reviewed these and made some requests for revisions. This process was repeated a few times until we finally had the logo we thought would work well in a variety of contexts.
The next step was for the designer to incorporate the logo into designs for letterheads, memos, faxes and button icons for our Linkout items in PubMed. The first three items were produced relatively easily. The designer submitted three designs but one stood out to the library staff and was selected. This design featured a banner with clear, modern and elegant type style and subtle grey accents. We also liked the white space on the right side of design, which provided us with space to label specific type of materials, such as Tech Tip or Pathfinders.
But with the button icons we hit a snag. We hadn’t considered the physical and file size constraints for logos in PubMed in specifying the logo design. We couldn’t get our logo small enough without losing too much detail. The designer went back to his high-end Mac drawing board and came up with buttons that used the same typeface as our letterhead.
Now we were finished, we thought. The designer sent us the final files in tif and jpg formats, but we found some display inconsistencies between the tif file created on a Mac and our use of them on an IBM PC. We finally figured out the proper conversion protocol and all worked splendidly.
Now each library staff member has a custom designed and personalized letterhead, fax, and memo templates for their use in MS Word. Our button icons have been uploaded to PubMed and the library orientation materials for our summer sessions have all been produced using the new design.
Our next step is to apply for another mini-grant to help us produce some branded promotional materials with the new logo , such as mousepads, pens and bookmarks. We’re even thinking of a semester launch party that features a cake with our new logo, but we understand NN/LM doesn’t fund food. Guess we’ll have to look to other budget areas.
