new answerland logo and site design

Thanks to the Answerland Logo team, Erin Golub, Stuart Levy, Emily Papagni and Kim Read, we now have an image to go with our new (old) identity.

The team tried to find a logo that conveyed that Answerland was about people giving answers to other people, that it was from the library, that it was convenient and authoritative - whew! That's a lot. They worked with a crowdsourcing site, Crowdspring again, and no submission was perfect.

When we showed various designs to patrons and potential patrons, it became clear that people of all ages understand that this logo is "about people".

Meanwhile, I've been working with an information architect and a graphic designer to come up with a new design for the Answerland website. Here is the front page, so far:

One of the main ideas is that there is only one layer of navigation. This will be especially important on the librarian side of things! The site will also gracefully switch to a mobile version, using the responsive web design.

If you're curious as to how the rest of the patron-facing parts of the site, you can download a PDF of the comprehensive layouts below. Look for this website to be live in October, so there is plenty of time to tell me what you think.

So far, the reactions have been quite strong, so don't be afraid to lay it on me.