“The email from the children’s library was that they wanted me to retouch their American Girl styled portraits for their upcoming AG program. The ladies put together their own creative costumes using pre-owned materials or buying extra touches very cheaply. For example, a pair of 1970s bloomers cost only $4 on Etsy! When I inquired what backgrounds the ladies would like to go with their photos, they left the decision up to me. Sensing a challenge, I decided to transform the librarians into their own American Girl book covers.

I spent a total of 7 hours creating the 5 portraits. I used Photoshop to clean up the photos which had been taken in our Digital Media Lab. The main alteration was color correcting such as turning a ribbon from blue to green. Next up was to find the original American Girls book covers of my childhood. ((for those less familiar (like me) you can see larger sized originals here -Ed.)) I then Photoshopped the original girl off the artwork then overlaid my colleagues on top in Keynote. For Kit, there is no older designed book cover. So I had to reconstruct it using Addy’s cover. The font used on the covers is Baskerville, by the way. ((here’s a free version you can download -Ed.))

The posters were then shared on the Library’s social media accounts, on the librarians’ personal Instagrams, and on the large digital signage in the Library. I wasn’t there to attend the program, but I hear it was a smashing success!”

Update (May 2, 2015): Darien Library and Amanda Goodman were awarded Outstanding Library Public Relations for Print Media – Poster by the Connecticut Library Association for this work.

Institution: Darien Library
Creator/Submitted by: A. Goodman