These are posts that emphasize John LeMasney’s understanding and appreciation of the tenets and principles of design.
In this transformation of the iconic image of Marilyn Monroe, I decided to make the pixelated image, because I’m observing a special social visual interest in pixelation. Enjoy. 🙂
In the GIMP, I decided to import this image of Marilyn, then to apply a pixelize filter, resize to 128×128, and export as a PNG. Easy to do, but I think it will become more important to be able to do.
This video demonstrates how to use Inkscape to disguise a soup can’s label, and then to wrap text around it fairly believably. Here is the final image.
The truth knocks on the door and you say, “Go away, I’m looking for the truth,” and so it goes away. Puzzling.” (Robert Persig) by John LeMasney via lemasney.com
I was alerted to Toby Greenwalt’s great blog theanalogdivide by Sophie Brookover of Library Link NJ, in which Toby just proposed a series of design problems as they relate to libraries. I love a good design problem. Here he introduces the first problem, and below I answer it in my own way.
“Your first challenge? Create a online library card signup. You could say that signing up for a library card is our equivalent of what websites refer to as onboarding – the process with which a user becomes part of that site. Sites invest significant work-hours and enormous sums of money to make this process as appealing as possible?
Libraries? Not so much. Whether through requiring in-person visits, confusing policy, or resorting to PDFs, libraries tend to get in their own way when it comes to attracting new users. We can do better than this. I’d like to use this inaugural Challenge to prove it.
Your criteria:
- Design a workflow that a hypothetical user would use to sign up for your hypothetical library. You’ll need to use this design to address the issue of proving residency.
- If there’s a policy that needs to be set in order to make your design work, you’ll need to explain that policy.
- Any medium is OK. Pencil-and-paper. Google Form. Flowchart. Photoshop mockup. Working prototype.
- If you draw inspiration from somewhere, cite your sources. I’d love to hear a bit about your process.
- You must have your design published by Monday, May 5th. Remember to email me (toby at theanalogdivide dot com) with the link. If you don’t have your own web space, feel free to send me the design and I’ll publish it here.”
~ theanalogdivide » Blog Archive » The Librarian Design Challenge –
So my answer is as follows:
This mimics Google’s own location verification process for business registration listing in Google Places service https://support.google.com/business/answer/2911778?hl=en&visit_id=637299706572194876-2550561397&rd=1).
Please visit the first entry in this series and stay tuned for the following parts of this chapter.
Pinterest is a social network (a place where people come together to connect) which focuses on visual content, such as pictures, graphics, diagrams, logos, videos, animations and other imagery. In fact, without an image or a video, you can not post to Pinterest. This sets it apart from other social networks, like Facebook, where a posting can be text-based.
Libraries can make use of this visually oriented service to engage patrons and other stakeholders differently than they can in person, on other social networks, or through other communication methods. Because of the visual focus of the system, Pinterest can become a visual catalog for browsing departments, a magazine of the latest program offerings, or an archive of events and milestones. Used effectively, following guidelines and examples below, you may be able to entice an otherwise untapped audience through visual means.
Libraries may wonder how Pinterest is of value comparative to other social networks like Facebook and Twitter. Pinterest is useful from a social marketing perspective in several ways. Many of its users consider it addictive, and spend hours using the system each week. As users click on one interesting item, they are shown other related items of similar interest. They can collect the most interesting items they find into ‘boards’, essentially making them curators and explorers of valuable content. People can then find, share, and follow those pins and boards, creating a sort of community of common interest. When users in the system find other users with similar tastes, they can follow those users and be exposed to more interesting, valuable, curated content. In the case of libraries or librarians as users, one can connect with patrons, be exposed to library trends by following other interesting libraries, follow publishers and media producers who share content that they find to be of value to their patrons, staff and other stakeholders. In particular, because Pinterest is a purely visual sharing system (as stated above, to create a pin, you must upload or find an image, graphic, photo or video,) it allows a user to very quickly assess if they are in philosophical, ideological, or simply visual alignment with another Pinterest user. Compare this to other systems, where you might have to assess alignment by reading through a few (or many more) tweets or status updates, which can be time-consuming and analytical. With Pinterest, a patron can look at a library’s page of pins or boards of another user and judge ideological alignment much quicker, sometimes in seconds. When libraries make sensible, brand related choices about their pins and boards in Pinterest, it can be incredibly powerful as a community building tool.
So, I took on a project in which I am supposed to produce a post a day. I’m already woefully behind. But you know what? That’s okay.
I have several drafts written up and ready to be polished and published. Right now there is (thankfully) a lot going on. Tonight’s post is about my promise: I’ll finish the year with 365 posts. They may not all have original design attached, as this one does not. They may not all be particularly long or detailed. But they will all have something to do with design, technology, branding, libraries or some other aspect of my organizational brand. I promise. Thanks for keeping faith!
Library to excuse fines in exchange for food donations
John LeMasney to defend Android vs. iOS tonight at Princeton Public Library
16/365 – 365grateful
365 Days of Savings: 10 ways to lower your cost of living [INFOGRAPHIC]