Stanford videos on publishing

This is great series of short videos on the topic of publishing from Stanford University. Unfortunately they are not producing any more of them—something about a 'budget crisis', say wha?—but what's in their archive is worth watching.

http://publishingcourses.stanford.edu/blog/

Topics range from books and magazines to blogging and future trends. I especially liked the videos from IDEO co-founder Bill Moggridge on non-traditional media, from former Wired art director Jeremy LaCroix about the function of the grid, and from author Chris Anderson on Long Tail-style media competition.

Note that SPPC's slogan, "Ideas Transform," is very similar in spirit to TED's "Ideas Worth Sharing." Just sayin'.

The man behind The Sartorialist

I'm a big fan of The Sartorialist. I love how its creator Scott Schumann describes the Internet as a "digital park bench." So something an avid people watcher would say!

Amex's Small Business Rules video

This is a really spiffy video featuring our company and its unique "lay on" (instead of layoff) policy during this recession. What unusual ways has your organization found to deal with the economic downturn?

Watch the video here.

Book trailer project complete!

I fell in love with After Effects a few years ago and taught myself enough to create a couple of decent book trailers. You can see them here and here. But alas, they were very time consuming to produce and our company wisely chose to stop offering book trailers as a marketing service.

But we made an exception this past month for one author who is releasing a sequel to the first novel she published with us. So between covers and other things print, I have been working on this trailer for the last few weeks. I think it turned out pretty well.

I love YouTube's new HD capability. Nothing's worse than agonizing over visual subtleties only to have low resolution video compression obliterate them all.

Book Trailer for It's a Book

Can it text? Tweet? WiFi? Blog? No, it's a book...

The 1:55 cover design

Great stop-motion like animation of the creation of a book cover by Lauren Panepinto. My favorite moment is the "Oops! The Eiffel Tower wasn't built yet!". Historical accuracy. Pfft.

TV appearance on The Daily Show

I was very excited to hear that one of the authors I created a cover for appeared on The Daily Show. Unfortunately, the episode (see it here) did not present the author in a favorable light, nor {sigh} did it show the book.

DESCRIPTION

Paperback book

DATE

April 2007

TYPE USED
Rosewood and Clarendon

DIMENSIONS

6 in × 9 in

SPECIAL TECHNIQUES
debossing
gritty matte and gloss areas

Author Featured on CBS Early Show

Recently, Mary Lou Quinlan, one of our authors was interviewed on CBS’s Early Show. See the video here.

This 5.5″ x 8.5″ softcover book features french flaps, a bright orange spot color, and a die cut. The interior is a two-color blue and black design.

As a veteran author and astute businesswoman, Ms Quinlan had a specific vision for this book based on her knowledge of her audience and her business purposes. From a design perspective, she wanted this book to be friendly, accessible, and convey a respect for women. We worked very closely with Mary Lou and her two co-authors to achieve these objectives. We collaborated to achieve the right length for the interior, a good balance of images to text, and the appropriate emotional tone with the photographs. This was a time intensive project for all involved, but the outcome was a unanimous success.