It’s the end of a busy couple of weeks where I have been focused on a lot of things–training and financials and marketing–everything except what I love the most: making books from photos and memories. I came across this fabulous project in my Facebook stream late last night and just had to share it with [...]
the bookness of books
July 27, 2010 – 4:21 pm
My friend and creative collaborator Suzanne Fox and I try to take a few hours off on the last Friday of the month and we inevitably end up at one or another Barnes & Nobles. We walk in, grab a basket, and head in our separate directions with a plan to meet in the café [...]
why making a book is hard – and fun!
July 20, 2010 – 9:14 am
I am just wrapping up a book project that I impetuously started late last Friday evening. I have created a few books “from scratch”, but usually I function as the designer, only responsible for the photos, design, layout and sometimes coordinating with the printer. So conceiving, writing, designing and producing an entire book—alone? This was [...]
Can people trust your pricing?
July 13, 2010 – 4:20 pm
Let’s suppose you were a builder and a potential client says, I’d like you to build me a structure out of this particular material that’s this size with this kind of a roof, one door, and four windows. How much would that cost?
You go back to the office, look up prices for materials, figure out [...]
3-Steve Jobs
July 13, 2010 – 4:04 pm
In most people’s vocabulary, “design” means veneer. It is interior decorating. It’s the fabric of the curtains and sofa. But to me, nothing could be further from the meaning of design.
Design is the fundamental soul of a man-made creation that ends up expressing itself in successive outer layers of the product or service.
Steve Jobs
quoted in [...]
thinking about [profitable] book design & production
July 9, 2010 – 8:58 am
It’s been almost a year since I introduced this blog with my first post What is Book Thinking to orient readers to this site. Here’s what I wrote:
… I plan to share what I have learned about how to think about a book project, organize its content [particularly images], design and produce it—and make a [...]
speaking of e-books
June 8, 2010 – 2:39 pm
With the recent release of the iPad and the latest iPhone, there’s been a lot of buzz lately about e-books. Here I offer up some thoughts on the subject.
You do realize, don’t you, that the “book” part of “e-book” is a metaphor? It’s used to describe a way of presenting text through electronic devices. I [...]
project rhythms
May 18, 2010 – 4:23 pm
I’m in the initial design stage of one project and in the final review/revision cycle of another so I’ve been thinking about project rhythms a lot lately. Here’s what it sounds like in my head:
The beginning of a project needs a generous amount of calendar time at the beginning. If you’ve estimated 8 hours for [...]
writing effective tasks and milestones
May 11, 2010 – 1:35 pm
Warning: today’s post is a wee bit geeky, but if you do as I suggest, it will make your project management life so much better. [Like cod liver oil in orange juice – tastes yukky but good for you. At least that’s what my mother used to tell me.]
Last week I did a teleclass [...]
