We had a critique for our library brand during week 7. I wasn’t entirely confident with the work I'd done and how well it met the brief at this point, however I pushed myself to show my work as receiving opinions and feedback would be worth it. The bento board of what I showed is as shown below:
The feedback I received and show this went in class can be seen in my weekly blog:
I have quite a few changes to make for my brand after the critique. To be honest, these changes aren't a complete overhaul, but do really change the overall feel of my brand. Although this creates a lot of work for me, I feel that making these changes based on the feedback I received is important to ensure I’m creating something appealing to a wider audience.
There was some confusion about my brand name, as to be honest I kind of froze when I was asked why this was my name and what it meant. At this point, I realised that I may not have fully outlined why I chose OpenBooks as my sub-brand name.
I chose the name OpenBooks for both the individual and combined word definitions. ‘Open’ is a reflection of how the service is open to anyone regardless of how unconfident they may be, and ‘Books’ refers to what the service will offer to them. The combined meaning reflects the phrase ‘Open Books’, which tends to be used ti describe people who are free and open. This is what I want my sub-brand to encourage; transparency on reading levels and bring back open enjoyment to reading.
My lecturer pointed out that OpenBooks as a combined word makes my brand look like it's simply an app. Therefore, I have made the decision to split the two up and rename my brand from OpenBooks to Open Books. I hope that this will make my intentions much clearer and open up more opportunities for physical aspects of branding:
Revised sub-brand name: Open Books
For my Bento Board, I hadn’t shown any ideas for physical library space ideas which most people had done. I did have ideas for this, but just didn’t show when there.
Some of my ideas for physical changes to the environment that this sub-brand could offer is softer, less distracting colours a libraries are often extremely vibrant, more comfortable seating and more quiet, private areas for people to read.
I believe that something excellent that this sub-brand could bring into the existing libraries is more thoughtful seating. In my experience, NI Libraries seating aren’t very comfortable, welcoming and seem quire outdated.
Reading chairs such as rocking chairs (as shown) or egg chairs have been shown to have a calming effect on people. I believe that having a comforting and calming seating options would help new readers overcome initial anxiety and discomfort when visiting library spaces.
I also had the idea of including touchscreen kiosks across LibrariesNI locations as a way of encoperating Open Books into the overall physical space of libraries, rather than just a selected area such as a certain room. These screens would work similarly to an app of such; users sign in and get reccomendations that are available at their location based on their needs and reading level. I think that this would help make the process of finding a physical book much less intimidating for new readers, as they could simply use these touchpoints rather than searching through the library.
My previous colour scheme was very intense- featuring three colours with completely different vibrancy and brightness.
I wanted to opt for some more soft colours but still keep characteristics of my old colour scheme, as my lecturer pointed out that too many extremely vibrant colours may be more difficult to achieve in a physical space. I wanted to keep my dark purple, but made it more purple than black as my lecturer pointed out that it was quite muted. I changed my secondary colour from purple to beige as this worked well with the existing purple and white and is a more viable option for in-person services. Furthermore, a warmer colour like this as apposed to a cool purple will feel more welcoming to users.