“The clichés about [the] quiet, dust, [and] librarians saying ‘shush,’ – those are all years out of the window.”
Prelinger Library, located in San Francisco and co-founded by Megan and Rick Prelinger, is primarily a collection of 19th and 20th century historical ephemera, periodicals, maps, and books. It specializes in material that is not commonly found in other public libraries. Their purpose is to collect, categorize and create a longer shelf life for “ephemera” — things like maps, brochures, advertisements and catalogs — that were never meant to keep a reader’s attention for too long.
Turning the library’s core idea of infinite knowledge and discovery into a visual motif.
Drawing from the idea of infinity and the large stacks in the library, a 3d axis is used and reflected into a system defining the brand.
Brand applications are derived from two concepts – an expanding 2d or 3d grid.
Information design for the library’s space reflects the founder’s vision for discovery within the library.
Library catalogues, signage, etc. present information functionally while creating moments for discovery, reflecting the organization system within the library.
This was a super fun project! I was really excited for a project where I could comprehensively create a system my design was based off of and I’m pretty happy with how this turned out. It felt like a fun challenge throughout. One thing I really appreciated about this was learning how to present my work: I felt like I gained a lot of confidence in how to articulate my design choices and brand usage effectively to hand off work to other designers. At the same time, having to present this to an audience also helped me learn how to dial in on the right amount of detail and how to use visuals in my favor when presenting my design concept in order to communicate my ideas effectively. Throughout this, I honestly struggled a lot with picking the right colors for the brand – balancing a palette that didn’t feel too digital or lively or too antiquated was pretty difficult, but revisiting fundamental color principles and getting feedback from my peers was really helpful and now I feel more confidently about my abilities to conquer color in the future!!
