I strolled through the library last week looking for possible, “coffee table”-worthy books that were in need of a redesign. Since my aim for my book design class is to have three, portfolio-ready pieces, I think the coffee table test is a good indicator of what can be achieved. I checked out  three books from the library, but as I started scanning them in, I eliminated one from the project possibilities. The first book that made the cut (or failed my own, arbitrary design litmus test, as it were), was Melcher Media’s Sex and the City: The Movie photo book.

It’s been a long time coming, but I finally have a moment to post images of the finished layout of The Elephant’s Child, Book Design’s first project. Once I’ve gotten the fully assembled book back, I’ll post a picture of that as well. But for now, JPEGs extracted from the PDF file will have to do. Let me know what you think.

This summer, I’ve enrolled in the book design class at the University of Baltimore. Since UB’s summer session is a short eight weeks, the class instruction (and time to complete a project) is a whirlwind. The first project is to design a book for the Rudyard Kipling short story, “The Elephant’s Child”. After several revisions, I feel I’m close to being happy with my cover design.

Since I am not an illustrator by any stretch of the imagination, obtaining art for a project is always a challenge for me. Especially when there is no client to bill for the work. I found some exceptional paintings from artist Aria Eden which I used to create a rough mock-up to present to class. After attempting the first cover, I was told that artwork created for the story itself could not be used-even unpublished artwork. D’oh!

As I work on the revision for the instructional booklet, I’m testing out various colors for the hands in the instructions. Below are three options. What are your thoughts?

No Color Option

25% Black Option

25% PMS 4535 Option

Ever wondered how you can bind your own book without outsourcing the job to a bindery? Here’s a wonderfully excellent guide from No Media Kings on how to do just that. The guide breaks everything down from supplies to step-by-step instructions and everything in between. Happy binding!

For your pleasure, I’ve posted my revised narrative, Christmas with the Clauses. An original Seussical, with help from my friend Dan McGrain, and narrated by the wonderful Sid Whatley. Enjoy!

[youtube R1nwYL4ZBEo nolink]

Note: The file is rather large so it might take a few minutes to completely download. If the movie doesn’t load, please click here.

I’m curious to learn where people go to print out their rough drafts, comps and revisions. Before project three, I’ve printing everything at work. The upside is that I do not incur any costs, but the downside is that the printer is not properly calibrated and tends to print colors much darker than they actually are.

At the start of project three, I used Kinko’s. This is a place that is absolutely evil in my eyes, so to use their services again is costing me on so many levels: personal pride, wallet, time, frustration, energy.

I haven’t used the lab on campus yet because I’m never in the neighborhood. I’m wondering how everyone else is handling things.

I was planning on writing about the new spa treatment of fish in a bowl nibbling on patrons’ feet. Lo and behold, there is an article in The Baltimore Sun’s Web site on Sunday. How wonderful! Left scrambling, I’ve narrowed down my choices to two possibilities: a sanitizing grocery store cart and some innovative applications in dental research.

But, just how new is new? The grocery cart has a number of press releases that have been indexed by Google, but is a press release enough to make it old news? Even if was dated three days ago?

Admittedly, the cart interests me more, but I have more (inside) information about the dental research applications. A conundrum indeed.

After talking to a few of my friends, I was finally able to pin one down long enough to do an interview. I’ve interviewed people before, and while most interviews ended up as a podcast, I did publish one article based on an interview. And I was able to make the story as long, or short, as I wanted.

Having only a maximum of 250 words for this assignment is going to be a real challenge for me. I would never have thought I’d admit such a thing. The challenge for me is usually getting started on structuring a profile, and making sure I hit all the major points from the interview. With the word limit, the profile needs to be short, sweet and to the point. And also interesting. Very challenging!