THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1996, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Thursday, June 27, 1996 TAG: 9606250132
SECTION: NORFOLK COMPASS PAGE: 03 EDITION: FINAL
COLUMN: THUMBS UP
SOURCE: BY KATHRYN DARLING, STAFF WRITER
LENGTH: 72 lines
GRAPHIC DESIGN student Michael Wright might not even need a portfolio to show prospective employers his work.
He could just take them on a tour of Norfolk.
Wright, who graduated from Old Dominion University this month, is the winner of the Norfolk Public Library's logo contest.
The winning design not only will be on all correspondence and promotional material the library sends out, but it soon will fly on flags and banners at the Kirn Memorial Library and at its 11 branches.
The design will even be put on the libraries' bookmobile, which travels with its 3,000 books to parts of Norfolk not served by a branch library. The bookmobile makes books available to children who often can't get to the library and to elderly people who are homebound or aren't able to get out much, said Sally Reed, Norfolk's director of libraries.
``The bookmobile finds these pockets and fills those needs,'' Reed said.
The bookmobile now goes out twice a week for 10 scheduled stops in the community. Reed said she expects the new logo to increase the community's awareness and usage of the bookmobile.
Yvonne Hilliard-Bradley, extension services manager for the library, said the bookmobile has gone to festivals, such as the Virginia Children's Festival and the AFR'AM Fest at Town Point Park. The bookmobile was also at the ``Just Say No Games'' at Norview High School this past year. Reed said that after the logo adorns the vehicle, she also wants the bookmobile involved in city parades.
Of the more than 15 entries in the contest, Wright's was chosen because it ``was the strongest, cleanest and most direct,'' Reed said.
The new logo had to be an attention getter, a visible, ``Hey Norfolk, look at us,'' she said.
Wright, who grew up in Hopewell, Va., and now lives in the Larchmont area, said it took him only 15 minutes to design the letters of the logo he submitted.
Later, he framed the letters with an open book, its pages aflutter. Reed said she requested that he add the open book part of the design to his work so that the logo would symbolize learning.
``It connotes wings - reading is soaring, learning is succeeding,'' she said.
Expressing ideas and concepts with visual images is what interested Wright in graphic arts.
One word can be expressed two completely different ways by changing the style of the lettering, he said. Each version will create a different mood with the same word.
Wright, 24, said he discovered his graphic design major by accident after he came to ODU as a sophomore in 1992.
He was a mechanical engineering major and was wandering the halls at school one day when he discovered the computer room of the art department. He was interested in the work the graphic designers were doing on the Macintosh computer, he said. He took two art classes that summer and by the fall had switched his major.
Graphic design was more tangible and more focused, he said, whereas in mechanical engineering, design is more functional.
Wright said as a graphic designer he can solve a problem and at the same time be artistic.
Now that he has graduated, Wright plans to pursue free-lance design jobs, then work on a master's degree in graphic design. MEMO: If you know someone whom you feel is deserving of a Thumbs Up!
feature, call Kathryn Darling at 446-2286. ILLUSTRATION: Staff photo by JIM WALKER
ODU graduate Michael Wright displays the winning logo he designed
for the Norfolk Public Library. He said it took him only 15 minutes
to do the lettering. by CNB