Carol,
 
Most of our Nebraska sites find the posters too large to be displayed in many locations.  At the current size, 20 per community would probably be plenty.  An 11 x 17 poster would be more popular and 50 per site at that size might be used up.   More space on the posters for local information would probably lead to additional use also.
 
Popularity and use of postcards differs greatly from site to site.  Everything from having them out for people to pick up as a souvenier of the exhibition to inserting one in each copy of the community newspaper as a promotion.  Fewer images would be OK with us but we really do like the "Brought to you by the Smithsonian Institution and the Nebraska Humanities Council."  500 per site is probably about right.
 
If I'm not mistaken a postcard larger than 4 x 6 requires additional postage so that might not be a good idea.


Mary Yager 
Senior Program Officer 
Nebraska Humanities Council 
215 Centennial Mall South, Ste 330 
Lincoln, NE 68508 
402-474-2131 ext 103 
FAX 402-474-4852 
www.nebraskahumanities.org 

"Cultivating an understanding of our history and culture"
Become a fan!  Nebraska Humanities Council on Facebook

--- On Mon, 8/16/10, Harsh, Carol <[log in to unmask]> wrote:


From: Harsh, Carol <[log in to unmask]>
Subject: question about MoMS posters and postcards
To: [log in to unmask]
Date: Monday, August 16, 2010, 12:10 PM








Hi all,
 
Hope you are having a wonderful summer and have enjoyed some time of relaxation. 
  
We are in the early stages of designing and printing the posters and postcards for The Way We Worked and we want to get some quick feedback about posters and postcards. 
  
We are considering a horizontal poster for The Way We Worked that may be about 15” tall x 22” wide.  As you know we design them in such a way as to leave space for the  host communities to  overprint their names and exhibition dates on the poster.  Council names and logos are on the posters, too. 
·         Is this size about right, or should the posters be smaller?  
·         Do your host towns use clear labels to put their info on the posters or do they go to a printer and have them done? 
·         Is 50 posters per town about right? Or is that too many? 
·         Do you think your venues find the posters useful? Or should we change them in some way? 
  
For the postcards, we are considering changing things up a bit and making them a little larger, 5” x 7” rather than 4” x 6”—and using 6 images rather than 10 images. This will give the host communities more space to print their program schedule or other info that they want to put on the postcards.  
·         How popular are the postcards? 
·         How are the postcards used in your states? 
·         Currently we print enough for each town to get  500 postcards.  Is that a good number? 
·         On the back of each postcard, we currently include a statement like, “Brought to you by the XXX Humanities Council.” It would save MoMS a ton of money if we didn’t customize the postcards.  How important is it to keep that phrase on them? 
  
We would appreciate your responses to these questions.  It will help us plan appropriately and spend MoMS money wisely. 
  
All the best, 
  
Carol 
  
Carol G. Harsh 
Director, Museum on Main Street 
Smithsonian Institution Traveling Exhibition Service 
P.O. Box 37012, MRC 941 
Washington, DC  20013-7012 
202-633-5333 
202-465-5267 (cell)