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We broke our (unpublished) rule of not including any tote bags or t-shirts.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.