Phoenix Library Card Blasts Off; Designed by Local Artist Kiyomi King

Doesn't this new Phoenix library card make you want to launch into a great piece of imaginative fiction?City residents can trade in their old cards for this cool, new one for free until the end of February. (It'll cost you two bucks after that).The image designed by Kiyomi King, a local...

By Ray Stern

January 2, 2009

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Doesn't this new Phoenix library card make you want to launch into a great piece of imaginative fiction?

City residents can trade in their old cards for this cool, new one for free until the end of February. (It'll cost you two bucks after that).

The image designed by Kiyomi King, a local artist, graphic designer and Japanese translator, is marvelously colorful and complex. The extent of the sci-fi imagery took us a few seconds to fully comprehend -- (those tail feathers are really some sort of propulsion system!) -- and we're still not sure of the meaning behind the checkerboard logo (Federation of Giant Chess-Playing SpaceBirds?)

The artist is a native of Tokyo who moved to Phoenix in 1996. A library news release today says she's a "self-described book-a-holic." The Republic had a brief interview with her for a story back in May when her card design was selected from a crowd of 32 competing artists.

Don't forget to check out King's work at the Burton Barr Central Library's first-floor @Central Gallery from May to June during an appreciation exhibit. -- Ray Stern

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Ray Stern is the former news editor of Phoenix New Times. He worked as a newspaper reporter in Arizona for more than two decades. He's won numerous awards for his reporting, including the Arizona Press Club's Don Bolles Award for Investigative Journalism.