A B-Side BY Armin

Brooklyn Public Library

About: (Est. 1896) “As an independent system, separate from the New York City and Queens libraries, Brooklyn Public Library serves the borough’s 2.5 million residents, offering thousands of public programs, millions of books and use of more than 1,100 free Internet-accessible computers.”

Design by: Eight and a Half.

Ed.’s Notes: I’m not usually the correct-English-police but there is something odd about the library using the slang-ish abbreviation of the borough. It’s far more readable at smaller sizes, that’s for sure.

Relevant links: BPL blog post with historical logos.

Select quote: “Gone is the sad little black box that for so long meekly defined our presence in the digital realm. There’s something invigorating about the facelift that comes with rebranding — it seems to signify a fresh start, a new direction.”

Thanks to Ricardo Cordoba for the tip.

Opinion BY Armin

Public School Library is all Buzz and no Bees

Sorry for the late start this morning. My two girls were up at 5:30 am (which is prime Brand New writing time) and then I had to play some early morning basketball. But speaking about kids… Today we are going super local and small because super local and small clients need super design too. Public School 9 (PS9) and Middle School 571 (MS571) in the Prospect Heights neighborhood of Brooklyn recently opened the doors to their new library (where there was none before) after being spearheaded by parents of the school’s kids. They nicknamed the library the Book Hive, with the furniture inspired by bee hives with cute reading benches in hexagon shapes. Brooklyn-based The Rich Greco created the identity for the library. When the Book Hive opened in November of last year, the school had no budget for a librarian so it remained closed and to add insult to injury the New York City Department of Education is planning to close MS571 and place a charter school in their place. So, for the kids, here is a pretty identity (where there was none before).

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