Freelance for Barnes & Noble
Let me start by saying that I know the manager of my local Barnes & Noble. During the months of May through July 2019, the manager reached out to me and wanted to commission banners to post on social media for book fairs, sales, and other occasions. During this time I made six pieces that she used to promote her store’s business.
Her first commission for me was a promotion for Aladdin merchandise with the release of the new Disney’s Aladdin movie which was released at the time. She took a picture of the display and asked me to crop it with a mystical background that fit the theming of the movie while plugging in a story time event for the kids that weekend.
I took the image to Clip Studio Paint, my preferred medium over Photoshop, and hashed out the project by the end of the day so I could make the deadline while being able to make any of the necessary tweaks she needed from me.
We got the project done and I was immediately set to work on a new commission for her for another event.
For the next commission, the manager wanted me to work on a piece for graduating students who were finishing school during the time. Again she provided me a picture of the merchandise they were promoting and I was to add the image of graduation caps flying in the air to fit the theme for the occasion. The message at the bottom was a make of my own using simple shapes and lettering to make the message look akin to a diploma. I found a mottled paper png to give the piece texture while using gradients to make the gold reflective to add to the authenticity of the piece.
For the next piece, I was given resources for book pride and was asked to make it colorful and match the aesthetic of the materials they were selling at the time. So I cropped the image and worked to find the appropriate font to use for the event. I ran into the issue of the font being lost in the colorful background but found a solution by using a white outline to help emphasize the text, helping it stand out a little more, before sending the piece to the manager. She was happy with the results and commissioned a new piece for me to work on.
My next commission was a piece for another story time event, this time for Rd. Seuss’s Hop on Pop. For this piece I was only given hard book cover to work with so I did a bit of digging and found an image I could use for the background for the promotion. The composition was perfect for me to place the book where it needed to go. As for the text to promote the event, I built a vector image in the shape of the white fluff used in the book. The vector was large enough for me to place the text so it would stand out and catch the eye.
The next piece was far easier to work with. In promotion for the release of Steven King’s It Chapter 2, I was given the book and image to crop it against. It as simple work for me to cut out the book and paste it for the banner.
In addition to that, I was given the text the manager wanted me to add to the image and fiddled with it until I could find the right font to fit with the one used for the title. From there I took to editing the dripping red to really encapsulate the feel of the material and I sent it to the manager to use the piece for what she needed.
For my final piece I was asked to make a promotional piece for a book fair event for the Eastlake Educational Foundation. This required a little more work on my part as I had no given resources to work from. It proved not to be an issue for me as I set to work on building the piece. I had the idea to make the banner pop by suggesting a blue grid paper look with simple images to connote to all the fields that were being celebrated at the event. I made simple vector pieces and scattered them across the piece, making them just transparent enough to not only stand out against the background but leave the layered text legible for the viewer. To help with the legibility, the font was given a very fine blue lining to keep the text sharp and help contrast against the muted white.
All in all, this brief venture into freelance work for Barnes & Nobel helped me keep my skills with image editing software sharp and I hope that this experience will help further my future in the field. I enjoyed my time working on these commissions and I look forward to new opportunities to help me branch out even further.
