DESIGNING BOOKS

A small hold up in Champagne ladies, but now back in buisness. The book will probably be published sliiiightly later than planned, but these things happen.

My designer, Annette Kristiansen, and I had a whole day workshop yesterday. It was good to work en face (literally, according to the picture above) on a project with so much personality. Got to love the little characters on her screen;)

We went through all the books where I love the design, to see if we could focus in on what typographic style that could work best for the champagne ladies.

Then we discussed back and forth about tonation of the sayings used in the book, and I even ran around the kitchen acting them out for her:)

We talked about each spread over and over again, worked with reading tempo, how you read a spread, how you read drawings, and took time to let the whole project sink in before we started the creative part. Proper preparation is gold.

It's great to do research on the styles you are passionate about, and to know the setting and scene where the book is intended for.

To know and respect a specific audience is incredibly important. When I see a product aimed at my group and style, that is poorly developed, I keep thinking that the developer never knew the scene well enough.

When this is taken lightly, your product is marketed to "everyone", which makes it generalized and you reach out to no one.

I sometimes buy books just because they are well crafted, and I know many others that do too.

It's like buying candy:)

The front cover of my book is also being designed simultaniously now, something I think is really important. Sometimes that is left to last, which usually means that everyone is tired of the project and just want a quick finish. But not this time! Yay!

(The title spread of my book now has elements from the front page, and it's lookin' goooood:)

Now I can finally consentrate 100% on making a great product, not just a product that works.

Today I worked throughly on the endpapers and typo for the front. I did more research on pagination and handmade typography, and kept sketching for the cover.

I'm very comfortable about her working on the book, I feel it's in good hands.

If you want to know which books the photos are from, give me a shout. I have to continue work now, so didn't have time to label them all.

:)