Red Barn 2011

The Red Barn Arts & Crafts Festival is one of the biggest annual events in Kirksville with the possible exception of move-in day for Truman State University freshmen. Over 100 vendors encircle the downtown square in Kirksville, Missouri for a (more often than not) beautiful fall Saturday. In addition to the shopping, there’s entertainment, antiques in the Kirksville Arts Center, and tons and tons of food. I can personally attest to a tortured love affair with deep-fried Oreos.

In 2008, I was asked to create a booth map for festival goers, and now came time for an overdue – and much needed – upgrade. It’s a combination of two documents; the map, and another detailing the awards given and entertainment schedule, plus a list of sponsors and people making it all possible.

Done on an 11"x17" sheet, there are no full bleeds to the edge. As information and details come down to the final week, there was no way a printer could turn it around safely. KAA has a color copier connected to their computer, so this was the best way to go.

I'm going to rework the map on my own time. It's derived from a plan reworking the curbs around the square. It's good, but it could be better, I'm just not sure how. Maybe there's too much color in it, and maybe that's just me. The map page is vertical due to the number of exhibitors. (Which is not a bad thing.) The space was best utilized in this fashion. On the other side, the entertainment schedule is on the back for easy reference.

And I can honestly say this is the first project where I had to look up the correct capitalization and punctuation of Etch A Sketch, listed in one of the judge's bios. I could've sworn it was hyphentated.