Creating a Logo: Catch the Vision Before You Go Bankrupt.

A huge problem facing people who want to make a great logo for a company or a product is that they haven’t a clue as to what they want their logo to look like. They’ll often hire a designer and expect him or her to know intuitively what pleases them without giving them a whole lot of direction. Well, unfortunately, they can't read minds, let alone if the pages are empty. Fill the pages, and then show them to the designer. Otherwise you'll waste a lot of time and money when they're not quite understanding what you're laying down. I’ll show you how to do it, but you’re going to have to get yourself alone, and take 30 minutes to do it. If you can spare the time, then keep reading.

Step 1: BRAINSTORM

Brainstorm images that are associated with your product name or function. ie: Apple created an image of an Apple to reflect its name The NBA uses the image of a player dribbling. Don’t worry about how hard it will be to draw the image in your mind, just jot it down and move on. Everything is possible when you’re brainstorming. Don’t hold back.

Step 2: SKETCH

You don't need artistic skills to do this, just get out a piece of paper, a pencil, and draw the images that are in your mind to the best of your ability. Don't be afraid to scratch a few ideas out every now and then, but don't make it a habit. The point of this exercise is to get as many images as you can think of on a piece of paper to get you ready to experiment.

Step 3: EXPERIMENT

When you find one or two that you want to start working with, try writing your company’s name in all caps to the right of the Logo. Does it look good? Darken the letters to see what it would look like bold. Redraw your logo and put your name somewhere else. Keep doing this until you’re struck in awe thinking, “That could really look good.” If you don’t reach this point after working with it for a time, don’t worry, maybe that image isn’t the best one to use. Go back to the paper you used in step 2 and either 1) pick a new image to experiment with, or 2) create a new sketch of a few new ideas you got since you were last here.

Rinse and Repeat until you feel satisfied with an idea. Heck, make multiple ideas and bring them to a designer, ask them to sketch them up quickly and pick 2 or 3 you'd like to see high def. If you have an idea of what you want ready before you talk with a professional, you’ll save a lot of valuable time and money as he or she will be able to work quickly and efficiently. If you still doubt, then let me tell you that it worked for me. Therefore, I believe you can do it. You should too.

I'll post again soon on some tips on making your own logo. As always, please feel free to comment or post based on what you like, don't like, or have suggestions that can be helpful to our readers.

RedNook Event: Sale Ends Soon!

K.Beck books is being featured on RedNook this week! We are thrilled to be working with the good folks at RedNook. The sale ends tomorrow, so hurry over and check it out: http://www.rednook.com/index.php/k-beck-books-custom-designed-stationary-and-art.html.

Check Out Photos from The Blot Event!

Thanks to all who came to the first Blot Event and congratulations to all of the contest winners. We feel the event was a roaring success and would welcome and and all feedback.

The Blot: Workshops for Writers is in support of local authors. We will be starting up a sponsored writing group in the near future. If you are a local writer who is interested in joining, please leave a comment with your contact info, or send us an email.

For those of you who missed it, have no fear, the next Blot Event will be coming soon.

A few photos in the meantime:

K.Beck books display table

TM Publishing co-sponsored the event.

Thanks to all of our talented speakers.

Blot: the Notebook giveaways!

Refreshments (mmm...)

All photos courtesy of Savannah Wood from TM Publishing.

Don't forget to sign up for the sponsored writing group (if you are on the fence, send us an email for more info). Hope to see you there!

Introducing Blot: the Notebook

In preparation for The Blot Event last week (huge success, thanks to all those of you who attended, photos coming soon!), we prepared some notebooks for our attendees. They were a hit and we are proud to announce that they are now available on the website.

Okay, so the wax seal plays no role,
we just find it charming.

Blot: the Notebook are 3x5 notebooks. They come in packs of 3 notebooks for $12.

Photography by JGublers Photography. Gorgeous, as always.

How to Cover a Sketchbook

A few days ago, I received a call from a delightful women out in Massachusetts. Kim had ordered one of our journals, but had a few questions. I'm so glad she called. It turns out that what she wanted, was not what she had ordered. Kim was looking for a refillable journal that could double as a sketchbook cover. We don't currently sell refillable journals, so we custom made a sketchbook cover around her specifications.

The cover was made from genuine leather

The slips for keeping the journal in place are designed for a 6x9 sketchbook;
 however, they are snug enough to hold a smaller size.

We added a canvas pocket for holding art supplies.

Love this wood button.

The cover was designed for a 6x9 sketchbook,
holding 80+ pages of 80lb drawing or mixed media paper.

It's amazing how often we end up doing custom orders for people. It's one of my favorite parts of the job. Books and journals are such personal items; it's rewarding to tailor them to individuals, plus, it's fun.

Do they still teach bookbinding?

It turns out they do.

When I think of trade schools, I think of HVAC repair, beauty schools, and auto mechanics. The North Bennet Street School of Boston Mass is a trade school of the classical genre. NBSS offers courses in bookbinding, furniture making, violin making, and piano technology. As an institution, NBSS has come to be one of the oldest and most respected trade schools in the country.

Here is a highlight from this article in Felt & Wire:

 “We’ve seen an interesting reaction to the rise in e-books and online publishing. There’s a heightened awareness of our work, both from people who are interested in doing it and from those who are interested in buying. People seem to have recently stopped taking physical books for granted — which might be a short-term phenomenon — as digital technology has come up. I sense a bit of a backlash — a renewed interest and appreciation of the higher end, in owning books that are of higher quality, a little better thought out, in terms of design or craft or both.” He adds, “Even Penguin Classics are beautiful right now, and I think that reflects demand. People don’t want throwaway — if it’s disposable, then electronic is fine. We’re definitely seeing people interested in taking care of their existing books — repair and conservation have been the main source of demand for bookbinding skills. We’re also seeing a growth in demand and interest in hand-bound books. I like to joke that nobody is ever going to say, ‘Oh look, here’s the Kindle that grandpa read during the war.’”

As bookbinders, this is what gets our hearts going, the inherent value of well-bound, beautiful books.

In addition to the article above, I recommend that anyone who is interested in the NBSS bookbinding program should check out Work of the Hand, a meticulous blog by current student, Henry Herbert.

For anyone local who is interested in hand-bookbinding classes, I teach those as well. In the beginner's class, we make a hardback book like this:

I also teach a coptic class:

Give me a call or send me an email to set up a private or group event.

The Blot Event

Hi All,

I just wanted to give a final plug for the Blot Event this Saturday (04.07) from 2-5 pm at the Provo Library. This event sponsored by K.Beck books and TM Publishing is in support of the local writing community. In addition to speakers, we'll be giving away journals, books, a kindle fire, and announcing the winner of the TM Publishing writing competition. Of course, there will be refreshments as well.

The event is open-house, so no need to come for the full 3 hours. If you aren't sure what time to come, here is a brief agenda:

• 2:15 - Welcome and Introduction
• 2:30 - Craft of Writing
• 3:00 - 1st round of Giveaways
• 3:15 - Book Design
• 3:45 - 2nd round of Giveaways
• 4:00 - Intro to Publishing
• 4:20 - 3rd round of Giveaways and Contest Winners

Free gifts for the first 150 people to arrive. Hope to see you there!

Kelcie

Alignment: Another Basic Principle of Design

Alignment is another basic element of good design. Everything in design needs to line up with something, and I mean everything. When even one element is not, it sticks out awkwardly and hurts the design. It’s a pretty simple concept to utilize though. An end line of text can line up with another end line, a strand of hair, or the edge of a blob. Let’s start off with a simple example.

Pretend that the following pictures are 2 ideas for a basic billboard advertisement for a fictional trains.com, the number one resource for everything you’d ever like to know about trains. The point of this simple ad is to point a consumer’s eyes to the all important url “trains.com.” It’s dumb I know, but bear with me. Here are the ads:

                                 1)

                                 2)

Which design leads you to the most important information on the design, the url, most effectively? Why did the other one not?

There’s a small slice of my personality called “OCD” that screams at me to fix the out-of-line car in the first example. I could write an ode to that audacious, irreverent, and socially awkward little car. It stopped my eyes in their tracks. I barely found time to notice the url, and if I was in a car, I would have flown by it without a second though. When the car falls in line with the others, however, my eyes move smoothly to “trains.com” without a second though. The power of alignment is in its organizational abilities. We love to look at things that are organized and look clean. (Ever notice how you like the look of a clean and tidy room over a dirty and messy one?) Aligning your design objects organizes them into a logical pattern.

Now, you may have the following concern about this advice: that there is beauty is in random placement of objects. To that, I agree with you. Artists do it because it makes viewers think and interpret. But in most cases, random placement is trying to make you think outside the box, look beyond what you see. My guess is that most of your work will be to push a certain message (read this book, visit my website, etc). When you design to convey a message, you need alignment. A lack of it pricks at the back of a consumer’s mind. That prick leaves him or her with an unsettled feeling, pushing them away as opposed to drawing them in.

There is a simple fix for this train design. The designer can either 1) put that car back in place, or 2) take advantage of that break in the line, and start the url name at the edge of the out-of-place car. The consumer’s eyes will now follow the break in the line to the all important url and ignore the rest of the cars. In this way the advertiser reaches their goal, and has to do little editing to change the actual picture. Check out an example of this below.

Here’s an example of alignment used in one of our recent flyers.

All informational text is aligned left (if you look closely, you’ll notice that the last letter of every line of text aligns to an invisible vertical line. Punctuation falls just to the right of this line. This helps keeps the visual feel of an invisible vertical line). TM Publishing’s name also aligns to that invisible line on the right. Its baseline aligns with the baseline of the KBeckbooks logo to the left. The left edge of the “K” in KBeckbooks aligns with the left edge of “The” in “The Blot. Look deeper in this design to see how alignment has been used. Also, pick up a magazine, newspaper, or access a website. Look for ways in which alignment was used well, and where alignment was used poorly. Find your favorite styles and start using them in your own designs. 

Alignment, like most of the other basic elements of design, is not as difficult as you might think it should be, providing its importance. Don’t be afraid to make it a priority in your design. Furthermore, DO NOT hesitate to rearrange or change your design if you find it out of alignment. It’s worth it, trust me.

As always, I appreciate any comments, questions, or feedback you can leave me on this matter. 

10 Reasons to have a Home Library

I keep hearing that the book is dead, dying at best, but I can't wrap my head around it. I love reading books on my phone as much as the next person, in fact, there are some books I prefer to read electronically. There is something about the small screen that makes you feel like you are whipping through those Russian Classics. While convenient, here are 10 reasons why electronic readers cannot replace the home library:

1. Social Discourse: Our home library serves as a conversation starter. Guests are not likely to flip through your e-reader, but they will peruse your shelves. Few topics are more enjoyable than mutual interest in literature.

2. Books are Beautiful: Many people use books as decoration. Real books (as opposed to faux-book blocks) bring personality and character to a room. Truly beautiful books make excellent collectors items or solo display pieces.

3. Personal Identity: A home library conveys the personality of the owner. In a library you collect the books  that have been meaningful to you and the ideas that have shaped your personality. A library can be an excellent reminder to ourselves of what we value most.

4. Literacy Development: Before children reach the first grade, they need to have spent well over 1,000 hours engaged in reading activities. (Adams, Beginning to Read. MIT Press).While some of these activities will include games, Sesame Street, and bedtime stores, hours spent just looking through books are hugely beneficial as well.

5. Communicates Priority: Owning books communicates that you put a priority on reading. Whether your library contains literature, philosophy, self-help, or any other genre, the ownership of books is a statement on the importance of the pursuit of knowledge and the power of the written word.

6. Tangible Assets: This is one place where the physical book outreaches the e-book 100 to 1. While you own both a physical book and an e-book, you can only loan out or give away a physical book. E-books are confined to one device for one owner. If you choose to collect rare or valuable books, these can retain real value that can be leveraged, gifted, or handed down in a family.

7. Visual Reminder: We all have goals to read books, but often our busy lives get in the way. A home library is an ever present reminder of that goal. In some regards, building a personal library can be a labor in gaining knowledge, stretching ability, and cultivating a meaningful and well-rounded collection for the ages.

8. Reference: A home library can be an excellent reference point for business ventures, academic learning, hobbies, and any number of topics.

9. Remembrance: Family histories, journals, and important documents are an important part of a personal library. Loose documents can be difficult to store, but gorgeous, book-like boxes are an excellent solution.

10. Preservation: Perhaps the most relevant to this digital age is the issue of preservation. Now, more than ever, we can keep detailed records of every correspondence, picture, chat, or online interaction. While these interactions are easy to store, they are less accessible. Email is a trove of important and meaningful correspondence, but is only accessible to someone with the username and password. Binding these memories into a custom book makes an invaluable addition to your home library.

How does repetition fit into design?

Repetition is consistency. It’s bringing one to three of the same elements into all of your designs to make it obvious to your viewer that the designs are 1) related, and 2) similar in purpose. These elements can be anything: colors, fonts, objects, etc.

Let’s return to Apple as our example. They have some of the best designs around. Go to their website: apple.com. Take a second to look at the home page. Notice the background and menu colors, the font styles of the featured product, and the hand interacting with the product (if you’re seeing the ad about the iPad2).

Now, click amongst the various tabs on the site. do you see these things repeated on each page? Let’s explore what they’re doing.

Every background is white.

Apple uses white in their TV ads, on their products, and on virtually every PR piece they’ve put out in the past decade. If they’re not using white, they’re using that grayish-silver.

Color attracts a lot of attention, even if the color is simply white. Colors carry associations to real life things like brands or events. Every debate in the presidential primaries, for instance, has a backdrop with the respective political party’s primary color: blue for the Republicans and red for the Democrats. Viewers who merely glance at the TV know immediately what party is debating based on the color of the set, not by the names of the people.

Color makes association easy. If you’re trying to brand a series of announcements, an event, or a company with your design, choose your color wisely and use it consistently.

Fonts are repeated.

Apple uses two main fonts for the things that you glance at quickly (ie. their ads). Their fonts consist of one simple, bold serif they use to advertise their products (iPod, iPad, ,iTunes, OS X Mountain Lion, etc), and another thinner font—that is more than likely of the same family—for all of their subtitles and catch phrases (“The new iPad,” “iCloud stores your…,” etc). The shape of the letters cue your mind to a product or description of their product. This happens all the time with a variety of simple and complex fonts. Don’t believe me?

Harry Potter of course. Not a single capital “h” or “p” was used , and yet certain features of this font (aka the lighting shaped base of the “T”) help you remember the font of Harry Potter’s book and movie title almost at once. You can almost see this words coming out of the clouds toward you can’t you?
Each font is unique and easily recognizable to one who is familiar with it. Fonts are a powerful repetition tool. Pick one you won’t get tired of.
The Hand
Repetition is found in the form of a bodiless, generic hand they use to show you how to use their products. They picked a simple, consistent medium that doesn’t distract you with the image of a person. (Notice that even when they first introduced the iPod, you never saw the details of the people dancing with them, they were merely silhouettes against a solid color.) It’s obvious that a person, such as yourself, can play with this product just as easily as they could with the original iPod Classic.
Thus you can see the power of repetition. If you were to see an ad for any product with one of these three elements, you would likely be reminded of Apple in some way. If Swiffer mops were to imitate all three elements, they wouldn’t sell a single mop. The viewer would only be thinking “this ad is a rip off,” or “How can I get my hands on the new iPhone 4S.”

As always, please leave a comment or a suggestion for my next post

Proximity: What does it have to do with design?

This lesson is inspired by Robin Williams’s (the author, not the actor) The Non-Designer’s Design & Type Books. If you've never heard of this book, it’s a good reference book for beginner designers.

Proximity is a basic element of design that is essential to make it mean anything. The principle is something that we all understand and use in our day to day lives, and yet it can be one of the most easily overlooked skills when creating our designs. Sometimes some of our toughest problems can be solved by simply applying this principle.

Proximity is easy enough to understand. It refers to how closely items are placed together on a page. For example:

There is proximity at play here. Proximity is simply the measurement of “closeness” or “farness” objects are away from each other. There are 4 objects on this page: the circle, the square, and the words “circle” and “square” (Consider text to be just another “object”). These 4 objects are spaced at different intervals showing no real relationship to each other… This collection of words and shapes doesn’t mean anything to us. We might stretch our minds to see it as a piece of art, but the reality of it is, this picture shares no real purpose. Conversely, If we move things around and place certain objects closer to each other and separate others, you get this:

We look at this picture and the objects suddenly have meaning. The circle and square are labeled. The text is placed closely to the object it labels, letting us know that we can expect them to share something in common. You’ll notice too that there is more space between the dissimilar items than there is between the similar items. The human brain associates items in closer proximity to each other and separates them from objects that are farther away. The best designs utilize this fact. Look at how Apple did it.

They put an attractive, average person (someone who you consider yourself to be) right on top of the iphone, creating a relationship between you and the iphone. Now the iphone has meaning to you.

You’ll notice that we also use proximity in our grammar. Like words are placed together. Ex: The bright red bouncy ball. We put “bright” and “red” together in order to distinguish that “bright” has to do with “red,” not “bouncy.” On top of that, we carefully place ball at the end of the sentence to note that we’re describing it. Our words lose meaning when we write “ball red the bright bouncy.” Through proximity, we create a meaning and purpose for our words.

You expect like things to be grouped together, so does your audience. You want to take advantage of proximity in every design. Your goal is to share a message with your intended audience and proximity will help you do that.

Do you have any questions? Any comments? Please leave them below! My plan is to talk about the principle of repetition in design next week. If you have any requests for topics, please let me know and I'll write about it in the coming weeks.

Wake Up the World

We have been working on a really interesting project with the owner of Free-Men Companies, Eric McGuire.

Free-Men Companies is a financial planning organization with a strong foundation in civic responsiblitiy. McGuire has written and published his book, Wake Up the World: Prophetic Warnings and Our Duty to Protect Freedom and the Constitution of the United States. The book is a compilation of instruction from the Founding Fathers and LDS Church leaders regarding the constitution of the United States.



McGuire had a gorgeous cover for his paperback books

 We worked with the author to design a custom cover design for the leather bound edition of his book. All of the cover design is done by hand using a silk screen printing method. This allows us a lot of flexibility in the design and provides a unique affect that is hard to replicate with offset printing or machine stamping. After working with McGuire, we settled on a clean, elegant design.



Books with their new leather covers, laid out to be screen-printed.



The Free-Men logo was screen printed onto the back of each book



Books laid out to dry with the first coat of sealant.



Stacked books getting prepped for delivery.

 One of the best parts of the job is working with authors and being exposed to some of the amazing things being done and said by the individuals in our community.

For more information, or to contact Eric McGuire, send an email.

What is the difference between a Serif and a Sans Serif?

Hey guys! I’m the newest member of the KBeckBooks team. My name is Chris. I graduated from college with a Psychology major and an Editing minor in August of last year. Books and book publishing have become an integral part of my life since graduation, a hobby turned career you might say. I currently intern in the Acquisitions department at Cedar Fort Publishing and am employed as a copyeditor an electronic publishing business.

I have picked up a few tricks of the trade that I think anyone interested in book layout or publication should know before jumping in. I want to start sharing these ideas with you via blog. I cannot reveal the specific, internal workings of either publishing company, as that would be infringement on intellectual property. I will, however, share the knowledge I have gained that is considered basic knowledge in the publishing community. We’ll start with layout design, more specifically typefaces and their uses.

If you’re anything like me, you heard the terms “serif” and “sans serif” once in your high school English class, but can hardly remember what they are, let alone the difference between them. The terms didn’t stick out because they were seemingly insignificant. I’m sorry to break it to you, but they are more significant than you now realize. You are influenced by them every day. They’re carefully chosen by professionals because they affect the readability of your text. Choose the wrong typeface, and you’ve lost your audience’s attention. So let’s go over what each is and their pros and cons.

Serifs

Serifs are unique because they always have extra markings—called serifs—on the letters. For example, instead of drawing two straight lines up and down for the capital letter “H,” you’ll notice horizontal lines extending off the ends of each vertical line, as shown in the picture provided. That’s the only thing that separates a serif from a sans serif.

Pros: These lines are more reminiscent of genuine human handwriting. They make the text easier to read for long periods of time. They are perfect for the body text of any book or blog (like this one. Notice I am using the common serif Times New Roman for this text).

Cons: Serifs are much less attractive when blown up to attract attention. The little lines stick out too much and detract from reading the message intended, and as a title, sign, or billboard is designed to attract attention, you don’t want to use them for these means.

Sans Serifs

Sans means “without,” and seeing that “serif” means extra markings, I’m guessing you can figure out that Sans Serifs means without those extra markings. You’ll notice the difference in this picture of an H.

Pros: Without the markings, these letters are easier to read and attract attention to the message, not the typeface. They’re great for titles, signs, and billboards.

Cons: Human eyes get weary of reading them for longer periods of time. They are unsettling to our eyes and we need to take a break. If you’re writing a book, a serif font will cause your readers to put it down, rather than continue on through the night.

Those are the essentials you need to know regarding serifs and sans serifs. There are endless amounts of fonts for both typefaces, the trick is finding the one that matches your needs. It becomes a matter of personal preference and I, unfortunately, can’t teach you that. A great resource to look for new fonts is dafont.com.

Please leave comments on other places you have found that offer good fonts. Feel free to also make requests regarding subject matter that you would like me to blog about. Look for my next blog on the topic of proximity in layout design.