The Blog
I Was On Hiatus—August 25th, 2009
I was on hiatus. From blogging, that is. Be nice if I could say I was on a vacation somewhere lush, exotic, and primitive, without any media—except that I could never survive in such a place. Claustrophobia, induced by no information, would surely kill me. It’s taking...
What I’ve Learned About Marketing, So Far— June 15th, 2009
I cannot say it enough times: Fully half of a freelancer’s work is finding work. At least before one has enough work to be self-sufficient or, at least, satisfied with the activity level. If you’re me, the next question would be, So when are you satisfied enough that...
My First Typefaces—March 22nd, 2009
The first typeface I used, once I had a laser printer and no longer relied on dot matrix output, was Avant Garde. Two things about this sans serif type stuck me: its interestingly large x-height and the fact that it was not Helvetica. This was back in 1989, long...
Finding My Muse—July 21st, 2007
Big can o’ worms! Bigger than I could have imagined. Opened a world of shaky ground for myself when I stated with such certainty that my first rule of book design is to stand, more or less, in the shadows and simply bring the author’s work to the reader. My interior...
Thinking About Type—July 14th, 2007
Sitting down at the marina having lunch, something I’ve been doing solo lately, I squinted as the bright sunlight reflected off the white pages of the book I was trying to read. It took some effort, as distractions abounded. There were the seagulls, noisy as ever, and...
I Know I Don’t Know—July 20th, 2007
Each of us realizes there are things we do not know. I mean, unless we fade to black when it comes to our own limitations. We may not even know what sorts of things we are ignorant about. One of the beauties of the Internet, I think, is how it continually points out...
When Publishing Is Like Going Through Labor
You know how sometimes it's said that writing and self-publishing a book is like giving birth? Well, I had an interesting experience bringing a book to press recently. We were using Amazon’s KDP. Now I must say that previously, before they changed their name from...
Idle Hands and All That—July 15th, 2007
Of course, I work in print. If I were one of those artists who could actually draw, I might not be so limited. But when I have no book in the hopper, its manuscript on my desk, or its textfiles on my machine, I usually spend my time online. I divide my attention...
Four Questions for Book Designers (Redux)
Back during the summer of 2007 I ran a piece in my still-young, original blog. “Four (Sometimes Multi-Part) Questions for Book Designers. Now that I have a website and a blog again I’m reposting my old blog pieces so that what I’ve had to say on book design and...