Few people outside the book industry--outside of the houses that actually produce books, really--know of the hair-rending angst that can go into making book jackets work. Book designers can be difficult to work with (says me, the editor), and editors oftentimes have ideas that are hackneyed or difficult to execute (or non-ideas that they think are ideas: "Don't use pink."). Sometimes no one is really sure what the focus on the book should be. And even if everyone knows exactly what they should be doing, lines of communication are dotted, especially when the in-house design manager is using freelancers, who may or, more likely, may not get any facetime with the person in control of the book. And at some houses the editor is taken out of the equation altogether--not even to mention the author.
More's the shame because packaging--the jacket, blurbs, copy on the flaps--is the single most important thing the publisher can do for a book.
That's all a lead up to why I found this article--Kill Your Darlings--on jacket revisions at Print magazine so illuminating. Print asked 8 designers to "show us their favorite runners-up, and to explain how and why these covers were nixed."
Tuesday, August 18, 2009
Monday, August 17, 2009
SNL Auditions
Courtesy of Metafilter, a bunch of Sautrday Night Live audition tapes, including my all-time favorite, Phil Hartman. For some reason, it really hurt me when he was killed (May 29, 1998). I'm still not sure why it hit me so hard - maybe because he seemed so fundamentally decent.
The post above also includes Dana Carvey and Jim Breuer (if you must).
The post above also includes Dana Carvey and Jim Breuer (if you must).
Oh, Poor Lego
David Weinberger is one of my favorite authors on information and the interweb. He creatively picks apart truisms with great insight and then is kind enough to share his thoughts with the rest of us. (He also wrote parts of The Cluetrain Manfesto, which everyone needs to read but doesn't know it.) His discussion of Staples and how it arranges its goods for sale is, dare I use the cliche, a tour de force and a good example of how his brain works (I think). (You can find that bit at the beginning of Everything Is Miscellaneous.)
Anyhoo, David recently wrote a blog post on how LEGO, one of my favorite companies--a company that revived itself by choosing to listen to its customers--has taken a giant step backward by pissing off the people who spend lots and lots of money buying its bricks. Not a smart move. I hope it's not a sign of more cluelessness to come.
Anyhoo, David recently wrote a blog post on how LEGO, one of my favorite companies--a company that revived itself by choosing to listen to its customers--has taken a giant step backward by pissing off the people who spend lots and lots of money buying its bricks. Not a smart move. I hope it's not a sign of more cluelessness to come.
How Americans Spend their Time
This is a fascinating info-graphic courtesy of the New York Times. It's based on the American Time Use Survey, "which asks thousands of American residents to recall every minute of a day." (The data here is for Americans over 15.) Fun to play with. I found it surprising that more people weren't at work--but maybe that says more about me than the rest of America.
All-You-Can-Jet Pass from jetBlue
This is pretty incredible. You can buy a pass on jetBlue for $599 which will allow you to take any available seat on nearly any jetBlue flight between September 8 and October 8. I'm glad I don't travel as much as I used to, because, you know, I like to stay home and actually interact with my family. OTOH, it's a sweet deal.
They must be really hurting (which I suppose goes without saying) or they have some model showing how they're going to make a bundle if x number of customers don't fly as much as they think they will when they buy the pass. Or both.
They must be really hurting (which I suppose goes without saying) or they have some model showing how they're going to make a bundle if x number of customers don't fly as much as they think they will when they buy the pass. Or both.
Sadly, the Undead Can't Exist
There's a mathematical argument for why vampires and zombies are impossible. Essentially, the speed with which they would need to feed and reproduce would outstrip human's ability to reproduce, so the number of zombies or vampires (or maybe zombies and vampires, 'cause then we could have undead wars, which would be awesome) would rapidly overwhelm and wipe out the human population. (For details, click through here.)
I think we can know safely divide the world into four groups:
1. those who find this convincing evidence that the undead cannot exist,
2. those who are not convinced by the mathematical proof,
3. those who find it silly to engage is such proof, and
4. those who say, "What about werewolves?!"
I think we can know safely divide the world into four groups:
1. those who find this convincing evidence that the undead cannot exist,
2. those who are not convinced by the mathematical proof,
3. those who find it silly to engage is such proof, and
4. those who say, "What about werewolves?!"
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