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Home » Project Focus

Meeting the Muse—Flex Your Creativity Exercises

by Joel Friedlander on January 14, 2019 5 Comments

I’m getting closer to publishing my new book on creativity called Meeting the Muse: 28 Ways to Unlock the Pleasures & Avoid the Pitfalls of Your Creative Life. As regular readers know, this book is not about book publishing, it’s about the motives that move us to be creative, and the obstacles we often encounter. […]

Filed Under: Project Focus, Writing Tagged With: creativity, freewriting, Meeting the Muse

Project Focus: Long and Complex Books Demand Attention to Detail

by Joel Friedlander on October 1, 2018 5 Comments

Two recent projects have reminded me of just how much attention book designers have to pay to details. With a complex book, every detail counts. What makes a book “complex”? It could be very long manuscripts, books with footnotes, endnotes, annotations, massive amounts of front matter and back matter, separate text streams, lots of tabular […]

Filed Under: Book Design, Project Focus Tagged With: book design, Conrad Osborne, David Brondos, fontds, typography

Creativity—You Are Absolutely Unique

by Joel Friedlander on September 17, 2018 15 Comments

I’m getting ready to publish a new book on creativity called Meeting the Muse: 28 Ways to Unlock the Pleasures & Avoid the Pitfalls of Your Creative Life. This book is not about book publishing, but more about the motives that move us to be creative, as all writers and authors are. Over my life […]

Filed Under: Project Focus, Writing Tagged With: Bookfly Design, creativity, James T. Egan, Meeting the Muse

Book Construction Blueprint, Creativity, WriteWell Writer’s Journals–An Update

by Joel Friedlander on August 28, 2017 5 Comments

An update on projects including the WriteWell Writer’s Journal, Book Construction Blueprint, and Creativity

Filed Under: Project Focus, Writing Tagged With: Book Construction Blueprint, creativity, WriteWell Writer's Journal

Self-Publishing Case Study: Serious Nonfiction

by Joel Friedlander on October 1, 2010 7 Comments

Self-Publishing Case Study: Unmaking War, Remaking Men by Kathleen Barry is the first self-published book from an author with traditionally published titles.

Filed Under: Book Design, Project Focus, Self-Publishing Tagged With: book design, case study, cover design, Kathleen Barry, self publishing, Unmaking War Remaking Men

Self-Publishing Case Study: Personal Memoir

by Joel Friedlander on September 22, 2010 19 Comments

Self-Publishing Case Study: Personal Memoir The Andrew Street Mob by Brian Marais, a great example of personal self-publishing. Designed for the purposes of the author, it presents a useful model.

Filed Under: Book Design, Book Production, Interior Design, Project Focus, Samples, Self-Publishing Tagged With: Brian Marais, Marais Media International, memoir, personal memoir, self publishing, The Andrew Street Mob

Project Focus: Exotic Life by Lisa Alpine

by Joel Friedlander on April 21, 2010 10 Comments

Travel writing, never out of fashion, seems to be pretty popular at the moment. And when you get great travel writing imbued with personality, you’ve got something special. That’s why I was really pleased to be called on by Lisa Alpine to design the interior of her new book, Exotic Life: Laughing Rivers, Dancing Drums […]

Filed Under: Book Design, Interior Design, Project Focus, Samples, Self-Publishing Tagged With: Carla King, Exotic Life, Lisa Alpine, self publishing, short story

Project Focus: Cover Design with Supplied Artwork for The “And” Principle

by Joel Friedlander on December 11, 2009 4 Comments

This is the second article about dealing with a cover design project with artwork supplied by the client. In the first, I looked at the book cover design process for Chris Finlan’s Not A Fire Exit. This time I’m going to look at the designs prepared for Bill Goldberg’s The “And” Principle. Here is the […]

Filed Under: Book Design, Cover Design, Project Focus, Samples, Self-Publishing Tagged With: Bill E. Goldberg, Book covers, Eve Olitsky, The "And" Principle, Yoga Journal

Project Focus: Interior Design for Business Mensch by Noah Alper

by Joel Friedlander on October 1, 2009 1 Comment

Books come in all different shapes and sizes and with many different purposes. Book design takes these diverse uses into account. Recently we designed Noah Alper’s Business Mensch, which combines memoir with business advice drawn from the author’s career as an entrepreneur. Along the way Noah tells numerous fascinating stories about the ups and downs […]

Filed Under: Book Design, Interior Design, Project Focus, Samples Tagged With: Adobe Garamond, Bernhard Modern, Business Mensch, Janson text, Lithos, Minion, Noah Alper, Poppl-Laudatio

Project Focus: 2-Color Cover Design for Trade Publishers

by Joel Friedlander on September 22, 2009 Leave a Comment

For offset printing, 2-color covers can be much more economical than 4-color covers, particularly for short-run books. I discussed two 2-color covers for self-published books in a previous article and explained why these covers are often preferred by publishers. Here I look at two covers done for trade publishers. This first cover was designed for […]

Filed Under: Book Design, Book Printing, Cover Design, Project Focus, Samples Tagged With: Charles Tuttle Publisher, D.T. Suzuki, Oak Knoll Press, offset printing

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"Writers change the world one reader at a time. But you can't change the world with a book that's still on your hard drive or in a box under your bed. This blog exists to help you get that book into people's hands."
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