A truly international project

The World is definitely shrinking



Autumn and winter Yorkshire can sometimes feel cold, dark and very long, sometimes starting in September and going right through to the end of the following August.


Recently I have been working on a project which has transported me to the heat of Thailand and Australia. I have been working with Simon Royle, based in Thailand, on his thriller, Tag, set 100 years from now. We have been speaking over Skype where, as the wind whistles round my studio, I can hear the cicadas and the occasional frog. Simon gave me creative carte blanche which is always a generous act where, as the author, he is so close to the project. One of the challenges of this cover is that as it will be both an ebook and printed book the cover has to work both for print and as a very small preview image in online stores.


After we had discussed the initial concepts Simon put me in touch with a very fine photographer Markus Summerer, who has produced the wonderful image for the cover. Markus has been great to work with, very open to suggestion and then adding his own spectacular creativity.


We started by having a long discussion giving me the chance to get under the skin of the project. Following this I came up with some different concepts which again we discussed over Skype. Markus, based in New South Wales, Australia, then produced a variety of images based on the agreed concept. We then reviewed these and asked for a couple of revisions which were turned round in a few days. We were very lucky that he produced 3 images all of which could have been used. In the end we chose the one seen above.


The ability to talk and work across such vast distances and time zones in some ways seems to reflect the spirit of the book. I look forward to further intercontinental collaborations. I am pleased to say that Simon is happy with the results as well. 


And now it is back to the autumn in the UK and starting work on the typography for the print version of the book. You can keep up with Simon's blog and writing at http://www.simon-royle.com/

Pip - Designers Dog 2

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Good morning all. I am Pip the Designers Dog. I have been living with Ned the Designer, Alison the Mosaic artist and Katy the schoolgirl for around 3 months now. I have been training to fill the big paws of Mac the Designers Dog who sadly died earlier this year.


Well I have got the basic grasp of book design and book cover design. I watch Ned the Designer staring at his computer screens and moving pictures and words around until they look good. I am also in the process of learning other skills as well that I need to work with The Big Ideas Collective, Ned the Designers other company.


I have my own Twitter account - until I came here I thought Twiitter is what birds do - But no - I tweet about things going on here.


This week Ned the Designer has been working on a couple of book projects for BlueRed books one on Icons and one on Events that changed the World. He has also been designing covers for plays for Nick Hern Books (which he has been doing for years) This week it has been covers for RSC, Tricycle Theatre, Everyman Theatre, Chichester Festival. He has also been doing some work with a Makaton signing project, Interactive CD covers for the University of York


For the Big Ideas Collective he has also been planning a project which he is presenting next week. He has been doing things called mind maps. He has also been planning for next weeks meetings and some work for Fern Manor (maker of Garden Retreats).


- so not to be outdone - here is my own breakdown - click on the map to see the detail.

…and Ned the Designer thinks he's been busy - this is my DAILY schedule.

Well that's about it for now - this schedule is 24/7 - I think I am about to going into the sleeping phase

*The photo above is me with Ned the Designer

Where did the first 2 months of the year go

The first 2 months of 2010 have just shot past. Lots of new business and new opportunities - so different from last year. With the improvements we have made to our internal systems 2h has expanded its capacity for publishing work, consequently we are looking to take on more publishing projects from our existing clients and looking forward to working with some new publishers and authors as well. We have posted our new portfolio presentation which shows a variety of 2h Design's book and cover work.  





I was lucky enough to have a trip to New York with Out-Take publishers to work with Michael Halsband on the pre-production for a book. I was also lucky enough to have Michael take my portrait (see below). Over the 4 days we must have gone through about 16,000 images and selected around 1500 in the first edit. More news as it happens. We have also worked with Michel Lafon Publishers to supply the files for Tunnels website for them to make a French version of the site - designed by 2h and expertly developed by Simon Bolstridge at Squeegee Design.





Type and lettering are so strongly part of Upper Eastside Manhattan I was staying in - very inspiring.

  

Next blog I will be putting together a list of useful things self publishers can do to make their book compete with the mainstream publishers. 

In the meantime if you have a publishing project you wish to discuss with 2h design please get in touch