UTS Library

My very first blog! Currently I have finished my degree at UTS in Visual Communications (6 months ago) and I am now very happily placed in the UTS Library as their designer. It's funny that I have gone to Uni for 4 years just to simply moved 50 m down the road :)

The Library has most definitely provided a great break from the design scene in a sense, whilst still allowing me to be creative, there is such a relaxed, friendly environment.

It's also a major area of change in the University; just next door the Frank Gehry building is underway, and in a few years the Library will have a brand new building to move into (currently where building 02 is). The library is also trying to change itself: from an institute where one would just go for knowledge, to one where one would go for inspiration. The future library's motto is to become the heart of the University, a celebration of not only knowledge, but of culture and collaboration also. I sincerely think the library (with the help of branding, strategy and some groundbreaking design work) can reach this goal. The library is one of the very few areas within a university that is neutral, where a design student can be working on the same desk as an engineer or a business student.

And so began the exploration into trying to set up an identity that the UTS Library can own. I was called into a meeting with the Library directors to discuss creating a document that manages to visualise this vision, however rather than being presented with a fleshed out, simple statement, I was given a complicated brain dump (also known as a mind map) to flesh out. Luckily Artist In Resident, and former UTS Vis Com Graduate, Chris Gaul, was at hand to also sit in. Chris had worked for digital eskimo for a few years and used strategy techniques to nut out exactly what the library was after, e.g. if the library was a person, what music would they listen to, what would they eat etc, and in single words, explain what the library IS and ISN'T to create a word cloud (below).

These emotive words also fed into some initial designs, which were ultimately intended for branding the future library vision, however became much more of a springboard for other design development...

The colour spectrum really symbolised the vision of the library - to become the heart of the University.
I also thought the installation at the MCA by Rebecca Bauman was fantastic - the combination of colours and energy, and I think there is a direct correlation between this and books...