Once more into the breach!

Things have been a little quiet on the Developing Librarian front in the past few weeks, as we plunged into our heavy research skills instruction season.  But activity is beginning to stir once more…

We have split into teams and devised a timeline–not for THIS site but for the site that will eventually be the public face of the Morningside Heights project: i.e., the end product of all this training.  The teams are Project Management, Design, Development, and Research.  Each team has a leader: I’m the leader of the Design Team. Our mission: design the logo, header and footer; layout the homepage and any auxiliary pages; choose fonts and color schemes; create the credits.

At our first meeting, team members focused on logo design.  What is going to be the essential image that represents the project?  We brainstormed ideas; one of our members had a folder of reference logos for us to think about–will it go across the top? Down the side? Incorporate an iconographic element that instantly encapsulates the endeavor?

We agreed each to go off and develop one idea we liked, on paper.  On April 10th, we’ll meet and compare the ideas; then we’ll vote and choose the one we like best. Once the winning design emerges, we have scheduled an Adobe Illustrator training session for April 17, in order to devise as many variations on the winning design as possible. We’ll then present these variants on a theme to the entire group: do we want the fonts compacted or elongated? Do we want the design components in heavy or light outline? Do we want the site title on one line or two?

The deadline for that presentation is our April 29th meeting.  The group as a whole will vote on the winning variant–and then we’ll have our logo.  The logo design, to a certain extent, drives the design of the header and footer, which is also due on April 29th.

So…check back with us at the end of the month–perhaps we’ll reveal the winning design! Or…perhaps we’ll wait until we can debut the entire site.  It will be a group decision: we’re very democratic!

Karen Green

Author: Karen Green

Karen Green has worked at the Columbia University Libraries as librarian for Ancient & Medieval History since 2002, and has been the Graphic Novels librarian since 2005. In 2015, she also became adjunct curator for Comics and Cartoons in Columbia’s Rare Book & Manuscript Library. She has a B.A. from NYU in Medieval and Renaissance Studies, an M.A. and M.Phil. from Columbia University in Medieval History, and an M.L.I.S. from Rutgers University. Karen believes that no one is defined by the relatively narrow set of interests that constitute their official job responsibilities (evidenced, at the very least, by her expansion into comics three years into her job at Columbia). Having lived in New York City since 1978, and loved the city since first visiting in 1969, she is particularly excited by the historical exploration that drives the Morningside Project. Her subject of inquiry is the Lion Brewery, once situated on Columbus Avenue between 107th and 109th Streets, a choice driven in part by her fifteen years as a bartender in NYC (1978-1993).