The Good Design Book

Editing

I had a couple of email exchanges with my editor, Amy Owen at HOW today. There were a few projects I overlooked in the writing that I’m going to finish up this weekend. Next week she’ll start pouring though the manuscript and then its off to proofing. Meanwhile our intern, Justin, poured all the text into the InDesign file so I can get a sense of how it all fits within the layout. There’s some good news and bad news there — the good being that I wrote about most projects in greater depth than I expected; the bad being that I’m going to have to make a lot of adjustments to the layout to accommodate the longer copy.

Ultimately its for the better, and I’m really pleased with the writing. This is my fourth book and while the others have (frankly) been a bit of a slog to write, this one has been a very different experience. The more I learned about each project, the more I was inspired to write. There are so many incredible people doing such meaningful work. The clients, the causes, the designers and the design are all quite extraordinary. I’m excited to be able to share so many with you.

So, that’s all for now. Another weekend of writing lies ahead. On Monday we’re going to give you all a chance to win an advance copy of the book, so stay tuned…

Oh, and if you’re not already following us on twitter, consider doing so now. It’ll give you a leg up!

By the numbers

Last night I emailed the manuscript to my editor, opened a bottle of wine we’d been holding onto since 1999 and got some sleep. While there is still some significant work ahead, this morning I took a moment to reflect on some of the work behind me. Here are a few of the quantifiable aspects of the book, for your  amusement:

To me, these numbers start to tell a story:

Thought we rejected about 80% of the work that came in, several contributors had multiple submissions accepted. Some firms are just really, really good.

We broke our (unpublished) rule of not including any tote bags or t-shirts. It was a prejudice, which was overcome by the excellence of those designs.

Though we had no photo budget, we shot about a third of the 523 images ourselves. You can also see from the ratio of projects to images that most include multiple images to help give readers as full an appreciation for the work as possible.

Speaking of ratios, words vastly out number images. This is still a book to look at, but as designers we can’t rely solely on visual inspiration. Every project has a story and every story a moral. I tried my best to tell them well.

Our six essayists did a great job of setting the context for each chapter. Some are established writers and some are being published here for the first time. All are design leaders, and I thank them.

I wish I’d done more interviews. The more I learned about each of the projects and the people who created them, the more I was inspired by their example. I’m looking at you, Dawn Hancock.

As for the f-bombs, those were out of my control. Sometimes a well placed expletive is warranted. Attribute two of the three to Brian Ponto.

Milestone

Today I finished writing the book.

Wow. That feels good to say. Of course, there will be the inevitable changes, and there are a few bits and pieces to finish up — back matter, filling in the odd bit of outstanding data, and some miscellaneous fact checking — but by and large, it’s done.

I started this blog thinking it would be interesting for many of you to follow along with the process of writing and designing a book. As you can probably surmise from my long silence, its not always that interesting a process. Writing is a fairly solitary exercise, and it just didn’t seem interesting to post “wrote another 1,000 words today.” As we get into the details of finalizing the layout and cover design, reviewing galleys, and planning some sort of launch party I’m sure the details will be more engaging. For now, my editor has the manuscript and I’m waiting on her expert insight and keen understanding of grammar.

In the coming weeks I plan to post some of the projects that didn’t make it into the book. We had so many great submissions, but had to draw the line somewhere. We could have crammed more into its 208 pages, but it would have come at the sacrifice of context. As it stands now, every single project has at least a 100-word description, often much more. My hope is that the book will be visually inspiring, but more than simple eye candy. I hope you’ll agree.

Thanks for your patience.

CCHS

Design Revolution Roadshow

I had the chance to visit with Emily Pilloton today. Her Design Revolution Roadshow Airstream trailer was parked outside of CCA, offering students and any other passers by a glimpse into the world of industrial design for the greater good. Emily’s passion and conviction are enviable — rivaled only by her deftly eloquent advocacy (for proof see her easily handle Stephen Colbert’s Q&A on last week’s Colbert Report).

Without question, Emily is her generation’s ambassador for good design, hands-on problem solving, and just plain giving a damn. I think she came along just in time, too.

We’re doing a little Q&A with Emily for the book, and I snapped her portrait while I was at it. The one above is an outtake, but she looked good in all of them. If you’re in the Bay Area and want to see the exhibit and meet Emily in person, head out to the roadshow kickoff Thursday night.

I’ll see you there.

Layout Sneak Peek

So, design-wise, here’s how the book is shaping up. I’ve picked five random spreads (below) to give you a sense of how we’re handling the work. Some spreads are dedicated to a single project, such as Office’s wonderful work for 826 Valencia (top) or the collaborative effort between Volume, Inc and Mende Design for Southern Exposure Gallery.

Most projects don’t actually receive their own spread, but almost all occupy their own page. A few spreads — like the very bottom one shown here with work by Stefan Sagmeister — are given over to a single image.

Sometime next week I’ll drop in a peek at some of the text pages, interviews and case studies.

Purely by coincidence, much of the text on these spreads is out of frame but trust me, we’re writing about everything.

Of Mice and Men

Wow. Was it really October when I last posted?

For any of you still following this infrequent chronicle of our writing and design process, here’s what’s going on:

First of all, I missed some deadlines. I was supposed to get a chunk of the writing into my editor back in October. Honestly I lost site of that deadline and unfortunately she did too. Consumed with the design of the book, and the selection and further curating of the content (more on that in a moment) and of course our regular studio work, teaching, the holidays, etc. etc. I was content to let sleeping dogs lie. The result? We’re behind. Not dangerously behind (my editor wisely set out an aggressive initial schedule) but there’s some catch up to do.

So, what have we been spending our time on? Well, first of all we had to cut about 100 pages form the book. Yep 100. If you’re wondering why we haven’t published a final list of contributors (aside from the fact that we never promised or intended to) that’s part of the reason. There’s a whole lot of good work that just isn’t going to fit. In editing the excess its been a delicate balance of maintaining a diverse body of work from an equally diverse selection of designers. In some cases this has meant having to cut really outstanding projects from firms who are already well represented in the book. Add to this that everyday we see or hear or think of something that really ought to be included, but wasn’t submitted or which we sought out but never secured. Charity Water. Amy Franceschini. The Girl Effect — awesome people and projects which you’ll just have to appreciate elsewhere.

We’re back down to 212 pages (a signature over our target) and HOW is looking into whether we can afford to run the extra pages. Fingers crossed.

Assuming that’s a go, we’ve got the page order locked down, about 95% of the final art in place, and all the credits set. There’s still a lot of writing to do and I’m currently corralling our essayists to complete their assignments as well.

I should mention also that we have been shooting most of the work here in the studio in order to have ore control over the look and feel of the book.

The last and most exciting development this week was the title meeting on Monday. Rockport recently published a book titled Good Design, so it looks like our title is going to be changing. There are a number of options on the table, including one that I’m pretty excited about. Hopefully that will be nailed down next week in time for the soon-to-be-regular-again Good Friday update. If so, you’ll all have some cover art to look at soon as well.

So that’s the latest. Sorry for the prolonged silence. This has been a long, boring part of the process— fraught with a lot of uncertainty and handwringing. I’ll try to keep you all more in the loop going forward, and post some snippets of content in the coming weeks as well.

Thanks for hanging in there.

Now, please do this.

September Update

Sorry for the longer-than-usual period(s) of silence. The Good Friday updates have ended up being more bi-weekly than weekly of late, for a number of reasons. The last few Fridays I’ve been out of town or at least out of the office, but in general the book has taken a bit of a back seat to some of the other projects going on in the studio.

BUT

Today we reviewed the twenty or so entries and tomorrow we’ll finish organizing everything into their respective categories. Look for a breakdown of the entries and selected work this Friday. It’s not going to be a comprehensive list of all the included designers but it should give you some idea of the makeup of the book. We’ll be contacting some of you for additional information early next week.

Thanks for your patience. More to come (soon).

And the winner is…

We received 428 entries prior to the August 14 midnight deadline, meaning Katy McCauley was closest with her guess of 432. Katy, send us your address and six months or so from now you’ll get an advance copy of the book.

Everyone else, thanks for your participation. Anyone who posts on the blog will be entered in a random drawing for some other goodies associated with the book — and we’ll have another contest soon.

One for the boys

Last Friday I posted about our need to include more women designers in the book. Since then I’ve heard from several of design’s leading ladies and I’m really excited to see what comes in this week.

Over the weekend I also received emails from a number of male designers that I am equally excited about. Aaron Draplin, Mick Hodgson, Sean Adams, Jason Munn, Frank Chimero, Bill Drenttel, Brian Jones, Joel Templin, and many other wrote in with a heads up that they’ll be submitting work. Meanwhile, entries have been arriving from Singapore, New Zealand, Venezuela, the UK and all over the U.S. We’re going to have a big task ahead of us as we sort through all the submissions, but I think it bodes well for the overall quality of the book.

If you’re reading this and haven’t submitted anything yet, you still have a few days left to do so. Do it.

Deadline in One Week

Just a reminder that the extended deadline closes in 7 days.

That’s Friday, August 14

We have a lot of submissions from all over the world — many from firms we recognize but lots of newcomers too. We’re still looking for great work to include. Why not take a moment today to get your entries together and send them in? It’s free and  it will make a difference.

I’m particularly interested in submissions from women designers and/or women run firms. So far the submissions look to favor men about 5 to 1 (!), and I know that’s not the complexion of the profession…