Okay, I Was Wrong
EVERYTHING YOU SAY
EVERYTHING YOU DO
WILL COME BACK
TO STAND WITH YOUEVERYTHING YOU TRUST
EVERYTHING YOU FEEL
WILL COME BACK
TO KNEEL WITH YOUEVERYTHING YOU SAY
EVERYTHING YOU TRY
WILL COME OUT
SOUNDING LIKE A LIEEVERYTHING YOU TRUST
EVERYTHING YOU KNOW
WILL TURN TO DUST
WILL BLOW
AWAY…Oh My My…
I’m cracking
I’m cracking
cracking
I’m cracking into a thousand piecesOPEN UP YOUR EYES
mama mama please come quick
something’s wrong I’m feeling sick
mama mama I’m in a mess
I can’t lose this heavinessoh my…oh my my my…oh my Mother
mary had a little lamb
little lamb
little lamb
mary had a little lamb
its fleece was…oh…mama mama
I searched these hills for my sweet lamb
I carried myself up the mountain
And 5 men came out
And I laid myself down
And I looked around
And I couldn’t find my sweet lamb
I’m looking for my Bottom Line
And as soon as I find it
I’m gonna turn my life aroundoh my…oh my my my…oh my Mother
oh my…oh my my my…oh my BrotherYOU‘RE FLOATING IN A HARBOUR
IN THE MIDDLE OF THE NIGHT
AND YOU‘RE LOOKING ALL AROUND YOU
AND YOU CAN‘T SEE ANY LIGHT
AND THE BLACK AND STARLESS HEAVENS
WEIGH DOWN UPON YOUR SOUL
AND YOU FACE THE OPEN SEA
AND YOU‘RE NOT SURE THAT YOU WANNA GO
AND YOU SCAN THE HORIZON
BUT THE ONLY LIGHT YOU FIND
IS IN THE PLACE YOU CAME FROM
THE PLACE YOU LEFT BEHIND
OH SO YOU‘RE MOVING OUT
MOVING OUT
MOVING OUT
CUTTING THE CORDS
YOU DON‘T KNOW WHERE YOU‘RE GOING
AND YOU DON‘T HAVE ANY MAPS
AND THE ONLY THING YOU‘RE SURE OF
IS YOU AIN‘T…GOING…BACK1. YOU WILL BE BORN INTO A STRANGE AND DESOLATE PLACE.
2. IT WILL BE CALLED “THE AVERAGE HOME.“
3. THE TIMES WILL BE RESTLESS AND FULL OF UNCERTAINTY.
4. YOU WILL SILENTLY QUESTION THIS OF YOUR MOTHER AS YOU WATCH HER MOVE AWAY.Precious Candles
YOUR LIGHT IS YOUR OWN
Is LIFE not Precious?…
YOUR LIGHT IS YOUR OWNmama mama
please come quick
take me home from school
I feel so sickmama mama
something’s wrong
my heart is breaking
but I don’t know whyoh my…oh my my my…oh my Mother
oh my…oh my my my…oh my Brother5. THERE WILL BE NO ANSWER.
6. YOU WILL BEGIN THE LONG PROCESS OF SHUTTING DOWN.
7. YOUR COUNTENANCE WILL REFLECT LESS LIGHT AND LATER WHEN YOU LOOK
AT PICTURES OF YOURSELF YOU WILL WONDER.
8. YOU WILL GIVE UP YOUR BACKBONE TO THE T.V. AND ACCEPT A VALUE SYSTEM
9. PUTTING FORTH LIES, HATRED AND INTOLERANCE IN THE NAME OF LOVE AS ACCEPTABLE.
10. NO ONE WILL STEP FORWARD FROM THE SHADOWS SAYING: “EXPECT THIS, IT IS PART OF THE PATH.“
11. YOU WILL DISCOVER DRUGS AND ALCOHOL.
12. YOU WILL INSTINCTIVELY MOVE TOWARDS YOUR OWN BOTTOM LINE.Precious Candles
YOUR LIGHT IS YOUR OWN
Precious Candles
YOUR LIGHT IS YOUR OWNmama mama please come quick
hold my head I feel so sick
mama mama let me come home
wrap me up I can’t get warmoh my…oh my my my…oh my Mother
oh my…oh my my my…oh my Brother13. YOU WILL RUSH HEADLONG TOWARDS YOUR BOTTOM LINE IN AN INSTINCTIVE ATTEMPT TO HEAL.
14. YOU WILL GO TO AA TO LEARN WHAT YOU SHOULD HAVE LEARNED IN SUNDAY SCHOOL.
15. AND THEN YOU WILL GIVE YOURSELF PERMISSION TO CRY. AND YOU WILL CRY AND CRY AND CRY.
16. AND YOUR FRIENDS WILL MOVE AWAY NERVOUSLY AND YOU‘LL FEEL LIKE A FOOL.
17. AND NO ONE WILL STEP FORWARD FROM THE SHADOWS SAYING
18. “THE JOURNEY FORWARD INCLUDES MOVEMENT INTO DESPAIR.“
19. AND YOU WILL BE GATHERING STRENGTH
20. EVEN AS YOU DON‘T UNDERSTAND.
21. AND CERTAIN WORDS LIKE LOVE AND…
22. INTEGRITY WILL BE DRAWN INTO YOUR SPINE.
23. AND THEN ONE DAY…
24. YOU WILL TURN OFF THE T.V.Precious Candles
YOUR LIGHT IS YOUR OWN
Precious Candles
YOUR LIGHT IS YOUR OWNmama mama something’s wrong
there’s only silence where there once was song
I keep hearing all these bells
am I healing or dying? I can’t tell.hey ho
sail on out
sail all night
sail on with all your might
land ahead
land ho
land ho
land hoI sure miss that little lamb
that little lamb called Puff
or…was it…Poof? or…
well, anyways, I sure miss that sweet lamblay down upon your pillow…
just live all you can knowing that’s all
you have to givemama mama I almost did it
I almost carried myself up the mountainside
In my own arms
And laid myself downthere a New Strength nearby, I know
And as soon as I find my Bottom Line
I’m gonna turn my life aroundI sure miss that little lamb…
here I go
Jane Siberry, Oh My My
Yeah, absolutely the intention was to bring everything here — and do interesting things with it.
Alas, if only life worked out that way.
Meanwhile, check out the new digs.
Note: This is the final post to this site (and blog). I’ll leave it up — for learning, for fun, whatever — as long as possible.
Posted by Giles, Monday, December 31, 2007, at 1:20 PM.
Posted to Book design | Business | Personal | Site news | Whatever
Way Behind the Curve
Been a long few weeks. Sorry for the lack of updates. A couple of thoughts on the site:
— Three weeks, nine hundred comments. All but one spam. Sheesh.
— Interestingly, all those comments appeared despite the commenting still being messed up. (Basically, when you submit a comment, it goes into the system — but the site times out before it tells you so, leading folks to hit the “back” button and try again. Sometimes even three or four times.) That suggests a(nother) breach in the anti-spam. Perhaps the MT4 upgrade, despite my misgivings, is a better idea than trying to switch.
I’m enough behind that I don’t want to speculate when the sites — all of them — be fixed/finished. Soon, hopefully.
Meanwhile, on the personal front:
— The mortgage crisis is just that: a crisis. While my credit has been steadily improving since leaving Florida, it’s still not optimal — and I got swept into the mess. My ready-to-go mortgage suddenly wasn’t, and I’ve been scrambling to deal with getting financing in a very tough market. Yuk.
— Car shopping also falls into the “yuk” category. With one exception, all of the local new and used dealers make me cringe, and that one hasn’t had what I’m looking for. So, going to try a different approach. Will report back how that turns out.
Photography is going well — the 85mm’s replacement rocks hard — and I have several different book design projects going (with quite a little stack queued). Hence the doubt about when the back end for the site will be finished. Again.
Probably my worst failing: too many threads. Not enough time.
Posted by Giles, Tuesday, August 21, 2007, at 2:14 PM.
Posted to Personal | Site news
Site Updates (And Other News)
Noted the announcement of Movable Type 4 on the administration side of the blog tonight — and can’t help but to comment on it.
I’ve been considering bailing from Movable Type for a while now, a feeling tremendously underscored by the recent besting of the code by spammers, the inability of the site — despite the upgraded server — to complete a rebuild without timing out, and a recent exposure to WordPress. When looked at in summary, a switch becomes a certainty.
Sooner rather than later, too, as I’ve changed my mind a bit regarding the blog’s mission. I hinted a few weeks ago that there would be more non-book content, but didn’t get into specifics; at the time, I was under the impression that I’d actually be doing more than one blog at one. Nope.
It’s all coming here.
Still holding back on the big picture until I’ve got the pieces in place. But tremendously excited about what’s in store, in terms of both photography and design.
Osprey Design is where all that I’m doing — and going to be doing — comes together: this is where photography gets utilized, design explored, and topics sent off — to keep it simpler for me, and simpler for you as readers, I’m going to keep it all in one place.
Times are a changin’. Stay tuned for more.
Posted by Giles, Sunday, July 8, 2007, at 7:52 PM.
Posted to Site news
Site Downed by Spam (Again)
Okay, they’re into the code. Apologies for the short outage tonight while we fight the problem. (I’ve enlisted help.)
They’ve corrupted the search somehow, and — far, far worse — have successfully spoofed the email, probably the reason my email keeps flaking out. Indeed, signs are pointing to a problem with gileshoover.com’s email, too, meaning my (electronic) name has been tarnished.
Happy Friday! Update shortly.
Okay, it was a permissions thing. Somehow, either through guessing or a script that reads CGI+PHP/does something nasty with Movable Type, spammers gained access to the site and have added some pages while altering others. All behind the scenes — the pages look the same.
Combined with my attention being elsewhere over the past few months, the problem spiraled out of control. Bad Giles.
As usual.
More Sunday.
Meanwhile, if some of the pages, especially those in the archives, act weird, apologies in advance. I’m likely to break a few links cleaning up, too; if any obvious errors jump out at you, let me know. Oh, and the TypeKey verification isn’t working. Thanks for your patience with the comment system everything.
Posted by Giles, Friday, June 29, 2007, at 6:47 PM.
Posted to Site news
Some Updates
— The Court has approved the divorce. Officially, it’s over. Many thanks to all those who, publicly and privately, expressed support or out-and-out helped. I could not have done it without you.
For the last couple of years, for better or worse (LOL! — sorry), there’s been a ton a personal stuff here, largely because the personal stuff took and kept the center stage in my life. I hope we can all agree that it will be a wonderful day when that’s long in the past.
— The mail’s working again. Bring it on. (Note: I’ll be out of the office most of tomorrow. So… bring it on Tuesday. Heheh.)
— I have InDesign CS3, Photoshop CS3, and Aperture all in-house. Stay tuned for lots of thoughts — on ID, especially. If you’ve taken the leap, please keep an eye out and contribute to the discussion when the posts are made. Thanks in advance.
— Recent efforts in web site design prove that … this site is horribly designed. I’m sorry that it doesn’t work as well as it should. Will be addressed ASAP. In the meantime, thanks for your patience.
Posted by Giles, Sunday, June 24, 2007, at 7:40 PM.
Posted to Site news
Wooden Hysteria
Finally.
The big news: I’m not dead. Although, for the past few months, it’s certainly felt like it.
Like this guy, I’ve been stuck: fire lapping at my feet, in near- or total panic, desperate to do something — anything — but unable to do so. It’s been some of the hardest months of my life, and it’s taken a tremendous toll on both Osprey Design and me personally.
However, the recovery begins soon: almost four months on, the final divorce agreement has been signed. There are details, but for all intents and purposes, it’s done. At long last, I can move on with my life.
[Pause for deep breath.]
Time for some announcements:
- The recent outage was spambot-related, and took days to fix. Some things — notably my mail — still aren’t working. (For cryin’ out loud. I so didn’t need this extra stress right now.)
- The main ospreydesign.com site is down for a complete redesign. It’s bloody well overdue, and, hopefully, I can do it properly this time — such that the spammers will lose.
- Foreword is also on the redesign list. Further, more than just the look will change — the focus will shift slightly, too. Fewer entries strictly on book design — although there will still be plenty — and more on use of photography in book design, advertising, and other design mediums.
Why? Well, that’s the most important announcement of all.
Simply put — someday, I’ll share more of the sordid details — having my primary business at risk of being lost to the divorce has led me to spend as much or more time doing photography as design, especially book design.
And darned if I didn’t get good at it. Enough so that people started asking me to do stuff. Then hiring me. A decision was necessary: just do design, or both photography and design?
Yeah, you saw it coming. Introducing Giles Hoover, Photographer.
Don’t get me wrong: I’ll still be here, designing books — and yapping about book design — for a long time to come. Indeed, stay tuned for more on both book design and photography next week. Then, shortly after, some semblance of regular posts.
Finally.
As always, thanks for stopping by.
Posted by Giles, Wednesday, June 13, 2007, at 3:06 AM.
Posted to Book design | Personal | Photography | Site news
Transitions
Broken and weak
Was it tiredness that made you sleep
Have you lost your will to speak
Was the earth spinning round
Were you falling through the ground
As the world came tumbling down
You prayed to God what have we done
Free me from these chains I need to change my way
Heal these broken wings I need to fly far away, far away, far away
Was it emptiness that made you weep
No more secrets to keep
Was it bitterness that gave you time
To forgive your sins
Was the earth spinning round
Were you falling through the ground
As the world came tumbling down
You prayed to God what have we done
Free me from these chains I need to change my way
Heal these broken wings I need to fly far away
Free me from these thoughts long forgotten down below
Take these angel’s words give them life to carry on, carry on, carry on
Free me from these chains…
Spinning, Zero 7 (from the album Simple Things)
— — —
I’m taking a few weeks off from blogging, while I churn through Yet Another Overwhelming To Do List™, a trip to Florida next week, and — finally, finally — near-term plans not only for a complete web site overhaul but for a finalization of my divorce.
Foreword will be back, even if it’s not exactly like what is before you now. I’m eager to get re-acquainted!
Meanwhile, I hope to see you online — perhaps over at Joseph’s — or out in the world. I’m easy to spot — long hair, big camera, and the finest felines everywhere showing me what’s what:
See you soon!
P.S. If you got here from Google, or are otherwise looking for resources regarding book design, please don’t let my break from blogging stop you from taking advantage of this site’s nearly two thousand posts on book design, photography, publishing, and much more. Use the category links in the left column to browse, or search for something specific. And I’m serious — I will be back in just a few weeks. Please check back.
Posted by Giles, Thursday, February 15, 2007, at 5:54 PM.
Posted to Personal | Site news
Pulp Action Pack
No sooner had I “almost completely caught up” than I was reminded — by more than one person — of other items that I should be doing/working on, such as today’s emphasis on paperwork and taxes for 2006. Joy! Back with more Friday or over the weekend.
It’s always nice when something book-design related shows up in the mailbox. Veer’s catalogs, on the other hand, almost always delight — so when Veer send something that’s book design, it’s gonna be yummy:
Perfect.
Posted by Giles, Wednesday, January 31, 2007, at 10:07 AM.
Posted to Site news | Type and typography
It Takes a Village!? Hell, No. It Takes a Crisis!
Okay, it’s been a week. month. year. FINE. Couple of years.
I bumped into someone I hadn’t seen in a while recently; she said, “I heard your life has turned into something of a blues album.” Exactly right, IMHO.
Case in point: the web site. Foreword hasn’t been updated nearly often enough, because it seems like all I have time to do is put out fires — and blogging on book design, photography, or anything else after a long day of bouncing from one panic to another isn’t always possible.
Having said all that, a couple of divergent items have unexpectedly snapped into focus in the last few days, and it’s been very helpful in moving the ball.
One of them, obvious to anyone who’s tried to access the site in the last few days, has been, well … the lack of a site. Woohoo. Takers for panic on panic?
The good news: the looooong-overdue overhaul of the site’s underlying structure — its server — is complete. Upgrades abound, from tons more space to better (and more) bandwidth. So, while the site may look the same, thanks to a little panic, it’s now on much more solid underpinnings.
The better news: With a very few exceptions, and despite the recent site crisis, I’m almost completely caught up with the “to do” list. Time to finally finish the rest of the upgrades, the main site redesign, and to get the rest of the comment stuff working.
Oh, yeah — need to take more photos, too:
Double Rainbow
Saw this outside the other day and at least had the presence of mind to go out and take a photograph. (And daydream, briefly, about finding the pot of gold…;)
Right now, however, time for another rare treat these days: a good night’s sleep. Back with more tomorrow afternoon.
Posted by Giles, Wednesday, January 24, 2007, at 10:11 PM.
Posted to Flickr | Personal | Photography | Site news
Okay, that hurt
Server problems with the ISP. Apologies for the outage.
More soon — after some of the details are fixed and everything running smoothly again, later tonight sometime.
Update: Mail’s working again. Info [at] for general stuff, blog [at] for blog-related emails. Note that anything sent in the last 72 hours is probably gone; please resend. Thanks.
Posted by Giles, Wednesday, January 24, 2007, at 12:07 PM.
Posted to Site news
Yeah, so it's Wednesday
…and I haven’t posted in forever. I promised Saturday, at the latest.
Three words for ya: twenty-hour days.
How about this: back soon.
Posted by Giles, Wednesday, January 17, 2007, at 2:56 PM.
Posted to Personal | Site news
Happy 2007
Can’t let the day pass without wishing all of Foreword’s readers worldwide a happy New Year — and a healthful, prosperous, wonderful 2007.
#4 on the ten-item resolution list for the new year — I won’t bore you with the whole thing — is to blog more, with time set aside regularly instead of the current sporadically. (Read: whenever I can — which, as you all know, isn’t often enough.)
Here’s hoping!
Posted by Giles, Monday, January 1, 2007, at 11:50 PM.
Posted to Personal | Site news | Whatever
Blogging to Peak in 2007?
From Ars:
The blogging “trend” could each its peak in 2007, according to a recent Gartner report. The prediction came as part of a larger report of the group’s top 10 predictions for 2007 and beyond, and predicted that the number of active bloggers would hit its all-time high in 2007 and level out soon thereafter.
[…]
However, the company says that the number of bloggers has been steadily growing over the years, and will peak at 100 million bloggers next year. Blog tracking site Technorati defines an “active” blog as one that is updated once every three months, and announced that it was tracking 57 million blogs as of this October, making the “blogosphere” over 100 times larger than it was in 2003. The rate of growth has begun to slow though, according to the company—the number of tracked blogs is now only doubling once every seven-and-a-half months or so compared to doubling every six months as it has in the recent past.
Once every three months!? Sheesh. And I stress when I can’t get an update in three times a week.
Would I love to do more? Sure. If someone can find the accompanying time.…
Posted by Giles, Thursday, December 14, 2006, at 12:13 PM.
Posted to Book and design blogs | Site news | Whatever
Happy Thanksgiving
Well, it’s been a week.
Okay, that’s wrong. It’s been like this for quite a while now. I’m sorry. Between the divorce and the heavier-than-expected fall season, I’ve just been snowed in. And it shows.
Thankfully, the camera’s a good stress reliever. Even a walk around the neighborhood yields dividends:
From the other day — an experiment in highlighting only some leaves while leaving the rest for text overlay. Now to find a use for it.…
Meanwhile, couple more posts for today, then taking the rest of the holiday weekend off. Enjoy the turkey tonight if you’re in the US; see you all on Monday.
Posted by Giles, Thursday, November 23, 2006, at 2:46 PM.
Posted to Flickr | Personal | Photography | Site news
Two Projects to Go...
…and I’ll be caught up on the to do list and have more time online. Coming soon.
Meanwhile, a new assignment’s just landed on the desk: War, Citizenship, and Territory, where the design guidance is, in its entirety, “Perhaps an image of patriotism during war?”
Nothing like open-ended possibilities! This one’s gonna gnaw at my soul until I get to it next week, I can feel it.…
Posted by Giles, Thursday, November 16, 2006, at 5:22 PM.
Posted to Book design | Personal | Site news
Beware of 10.4.8
Apologies for the delay in updating comments — indeed, getting online at all — as I had some difficulties after updating to Mac OS X 10.4.8 over the weekend.
Okay, that’s generous. It was a pain in the a**.
Very thankful for regular backups (and bootable external drives)! Meanwhile, off to sort still waiting for 1500+ emails. Sheesh.
Posted by Giles, Tuesday, October 10, 2006, at 10:04 PM.
Posted to Site news
Commenting Errors Persist
Okay, I’ve filed a “help me now, please!” ticket with Movable Type. Sorry for the problems! Please keep trying — avoid the preview if you have trouble — and know that I will update you as soon as I’ve heard back.
Special thanks to Joe M. for his help and patience.
Update: Movable Type says:
We have received another recent report of this behaviour in Movable Type 3.31 and 3.33, and were able to reproduce it with the default [JavaScript] templates. A case for this issue has been filed with the developers, so that they may identify and prioritise any possible corrections for a future version. At this time we have no information to provide you with regard to any corrections or alterations you might make to rectify this behaviour […].
They suggested dropping previews and using another preview plug-in as a workaround, which I’ll explore ASAP. Another update as soon as I can. Thanks!
Posted by Giles, Wednesday, October 4, 2006, at 2:53 PM.
Posted to Site news
Commenting Update, Again
A couple of you have written to let me know you’re still having difficulties with comments. Behind the scenes, there’s been working going on to solve the problem, including upgrades in the Movable Type software that runs the site.
As of this morning, things are running the way they should — at least from here. Please give it a try and see. Let me know at blog (at) ospreydesign (dot) com if you still have a problem, and I’ll get MT to look over the installation to offer their insights.
Thanks for your patience!
Posted by Giles, Thursday, September 28, 2006, at 9:59 AM.
Posted to Site news
Comments Update
The problem seems to be when you preview; the system “loses” your information for some reason. If you just type and hit “post,” it goes through — but previewed comments error out.
No reasons why that I can tell; going to ask for help from the Movable Type folks. More ASAP.
Posted by Giles, Wednesday, September 13, 2006, at 10:08 PM.
Posted to Site news
Errors in Posting Comments (Again)
Joe M. writes with a “Double Wow!” on the Library Smut entry — but wasn’t able to leave a comment due to an error. Argh!
Seems the comment errors are cropping up again. Will attempt to fix over the weekend — but in the meantime, please continue to try, as it seems to be an intermittent problem.
Many thanks for your patience — and continued comments!
Posted by Giles, Friday, September 8, 2006, at 11:12 AM.
Posted to Site news
Yet Another Personal Post: Why, #12
A client said something to me the other day that I hadn’t expected — and welcomed gratefully:
Giles … you nailed [this cover]. I didn’t expect to come home tonight and
find this gift. I’m downright excited about it.
Gift. Few things have made me feel as good about the work I’ve been doing recently, and emails like that are exactly the reason I’m a freelancer doing what I love, rather than sacrificing standards or autonomy to work at a firm or — gasp — publisher.
As most of you know, 2006 has not been an easy year; divorce aside, too many ospreydesign-related items have been started and not enough finished. A good chunk of that is because I always put my stuff at the bottom of the “to do” list, but I’d honestly rather do book covers than web site updates any day.
Thankfully, the quality of my book design continues to improve as I learn — from you, Foreword’s readers, from my fellow book designers, and from photographers. This is especially important to me; understanding the components I use most in book cover design is vital to where I want to go professionally.
So, a big thank you for your help — and patience — this year.
As a stop-gap measure ahead of the updated main site, which is still waiting on a related project (that’s been suffering delay after delay, grrrrr) before the almost-completed redesign can be finalized, I’ve updated the gallery with eleven new items. Most have been posted before, here or on Flickr, but some are new to all. Hope you like.
Posted by Giles, Wednesday, August 23, 2006, at 8:06 PM.
Posted to Book cover photography | Book design | Books, design, art | Flickr | Personal | Photography | Site news | Whatever
Whadda Weekend (and MT 3.3)
’Nuther frustrating weekend; I wish, just once, things would go according to plan. I feel like I’m producing some of the best work I’ve done, yet seem to be continually getting caught in circumstances beyond my control.
That’s certainly been reflected here on the site, with plans not met and posts not made — I apologize for yet another break in posting over the past few days.
One thing I did finally cross off the list tonight was the upgrade to Movable Type 3.3. The user interface (behind the scenes) has been tweaked, including some useful additions, and I’m hoping it’ll fix the commenting problem, too. Give it a shot!
And, once again, thank you for stopping by.
Posted by Giles, Tuesday, August 1, 2006, at 10:47 PM.
Posted to Personal | Site news
Commenting Problems -- and a GREAT Redesign
Yeah, so I’ve been yapping for a dog’s age about upgrading the server. It’s honestly pretty daunting to move all the stuff, so it’s been lurking on the “to do” list for a while. Not really an issue — until there are problems.
Right now, trying to leave a comment results in an “internal server error” about 90% of the time. Not sure of the cause, and rebuilding doesn’t help. Going to upgrade to Movable Type 3.3 (a new release) ASAP. Maybe that’ll work — update as I can.
In the meantime, check out Dystopos’ subtle-yet-oh-so-effective redo of The Dead Hour. Nice!
Posted by Giles, Thursday, July 27, 2006, at 1:24 PM.
Posted to Book design | Site news
The long-awaited POD Update
…isn’t. The project’s pretty much fizzled out.
[Shrugs.]
That’s the risk of being involved on the ground level instead of being hired once plans are in place. In the end, I have to say I don’t think the project going away is such a bad thing.
If nothing else, it’s given me a great introduction of some local business folks I didn’t know before, and, perhaps more importantly, it’s given me some specific ideas and contacts for things that might work — perhaps I’ll spill more of those plans later.
Posted by Giles, Monday, June 12, 2006, at 9:53 AM.
Posted to Book printers | Printing | Site news | Whatever
On Photography and the Canon Digital Rebel XT, Part 1
Phew: Survived. The last six weeks have been out-of-control busy, in case you couldn’t tell by the lack of posting (or comment moderation). Why? Well, six book covers (including the two Bush covers I’ve posted about), two magazine ads, a new edition of a 56-page catalog, and 100+ hours into this POD project I yapped about a few days ago now. Speaking of which, I’m starting with this because it’s fresh on my mind, then will work my way backwards through my list of once-intended posts over the next few days.
This post is a little off-topic for a book design blog, but I’m posting it for two reasons: One, uh, well, I can. Great thing about blogs — built-in soapbox…;)
Two, some of our “regular” readers might be interested either in this particular camera and how it worked (and didn’t work) for me in a very demanding test, or might be thinking about professional protography and are interested in the opinion of what amounts to an amateur shooting his first wedding — with a camera he’d used for only a few hours, didn’t have a manual or more than one effective (in my hands) lens for, and who undertook this project more than a little ragged after weeks of eighteen-plus-hour days.
Am I glad I did it? Yes. Absolutely, emphatically yes. I learned more about the hoops necessary to do this effectively than a thousand lectures from the best professionals in the world could have given; got to gift a good friend with more than a thousand photographs of his bachelor party, rehearsal dinner, wedding, reception, and a kickin’ party afterwards; and find out under the most grueling conditions possible whether a certain camera system will work for me before I put down the investment.
Couple of notes before I get the review proper underway: Product reviews are not my forté, so I’m hoping you’ll forgive a bit of a haphazard style. I’m going to give you good and bad, followed by a sample gallery of photos, posted through my Flickr account. Some photos are straight out of the Rebel XT (or my current Sony f828), some are altered in Photoshop. No matter what, it’s my opinion. There are Canon vs. Nikon wars aplenty; we don’t need one here. I’m not qualified to speak with authority on anything other than how I feel about this camera equipment, relative to what I have now, as someone serious about taking the step from “amateur” to “professional” photography. (I’ll explain that better, too.)
Continue reading "On Photography and the Canon Digital Rebel XT, Part 1"
Posted by Giles, Monday, May 22, 2006, at 4:24 AM.
Posted to Book cover photography | Book design | Books, design, art | Business | Computers | Flickr | Personal | Photography | Site news | Technology | Writing
My Bad: Wonderful
Few Tuesday updates for folks:
- Joseph, this is right on several levels. Thank you for posting about this. And, yes, I do think “Horsemen of the Esophagus” is a great title. We’ll leave whether something’s wrong with me for later, perhaps…;)
- Stephen Fraser of Lulu, apologies for not getting to posting Lulu’s take on POD. I owe BookMobile an email, too, and just haven’t had the time to do either. Uh, “My Bad.”
- An update on the POD question is coming soon — as soon as I can put together a few minutes. This project, which started as a cool idea, has suddenly snowballed into something quite huge. Plus, it’s local — my first non-internet client in a long while — which means meetings instead of quick emails, making for some very long days indeed.
Although, one of the joys (and curses, for those with schedules as insane as mine) of Macon is that a meeting just isn’t a couple of rushed minutes in some office, it’s an event, often involving a meal or at least some sort of tasty treat. (I had my first Mint Julep the other day — oh, a delightful drink — served at a sweet-tea refill rate. With lunch. Sheesh.)
It could even be said that the move South — from Florida, LOL! — continues to bring surprise. Absolutely not complaining.
Posted by Giles, Tuesday, May 16, 2006, at 11:29 AM.
Posted to Book design | Book printers | Books | Printing | Site news
@(*^&% Server!
I’ve been trying to put up an entry with a picture in it for a day and a half — unsuccessfully. Plus, comments are doing wacky things, appearing on some pages and not others, I believe because I haven’t been able to completely rebuild the site in several days.
Ladies and gentlemen, we have passed capacity.
The process to get us to the new server starts this weekend. Meanwhile, let me find some space on the current server (along with fixing a persistent permissions problem) so I can go back to posting — and you can hopefully go back to commenting.
Thank you for you patience. Light at the end of the tunnel is near!
Posted by Giles, Friday, May 5, 2006, at 9:21 AM.
Posted to Site news
Monday Morning Updates
• Update, later Monday: Wrote the below before reviewing the weekend’s covers, and wound up “brightening” things at the last minute from just PMS Black 6 to more “blue.” Also discarded one of the (three) final draft attempts; it just wasn’t up to snuff. (There were more than a hundred different rough ideas.)
A decision’s been made. I’ll post the winner, the loser, and some thoughts about it tomorrow. (Along with Oote’s stuff.) Meanwhile, must sleep.
• On Bush: Pantone Black 6 to the rescue — blue enough to be blue, black enough to be dark and conservative. (Not implying that conservative is dark. Well, directly…;) The red was harder, but in the end I was able to make red-white-and-blue stick. I’ll post ’em in a day or two, as we work through the next drafts or changes needed. (Sorry. Want to give the editors a crack at them first. Heh.)
Whew. Looong one.
• Oote Boe’s sent me a couple of interesting items and some news, which I’ll post later today or tomorrow morning.
• ospreydesign.com will be moving to a new server in the next couple of weeks. Long overdue, I’ve settled on a new host and will be starting the move as soon as this coming weekend. With almost a gig of archives, though, it’s not going to be an overnight thing — especially given the current server’s penchant to disconnect after fifty files have been downloaded.
There have been some problems completing rebuilds (after comments, for instance), so if you run into problems, please reload the page and try again; if you run into a page that’s incomplete or missing content, please try that page again in a few minutes — you likely checked the site mid-rebuild and it just needs time to complete the cycle. (It’s up to about 25 minutes. Sheesh.)
Redesigning the rest of the site will follow the move; I think I’ve settled on a design. It’s a compromise between what I wanted to do and something functional and, hopefully, nice to look at. It’s a matter of time, really: the blessing and curse of the busy small business owner. Thanks for your patience.
Posted by Giles, Monday, April 24, 2006, at 7:56 AM.
Posted to Book design | Photography | Site news
RSS Reminder
Reader email:
Thought you’d like to know that not all of your RSS feeds are working properly. Nothing from Forward showed up in Bloglines for about a month[…].
We debuted two new RSS feeds at the end of March. The last entry in the old feed says,
Many apologies to our RSS readers, but I’m changing the address of our RSS feed. It’s now named rss.xml instead of just index.xml, to better differentiate it from our new Atom feed. Please update your bookmarks with the feed of your choice — and please let me know of any problems or requests.
It gives the links, but let me repeat ’em:
XML 2.0 here, and
There are also links on the left. They won’t change again, promise, so please make sure your bookmarks are updated. Thanks!
(We an also add more feeds in different flavors if anybody would like — please just let us know.)
Posted by Giles, Tuesday, April 11, 2006, at 12:04 PM.
Posted to Site news
Preserved for Posterity
Found myself downright barking at a professional photographer tonight who had argued that restricting access to her work online was better than dealing with a few people out to cause trouble. I felt kinda bad afterwards; I was perhaps a little harsh. (Who? Me?)
I’m not a professional photographer, in the sense that I earn a living exclusively selling photographs, but I do sell photos, deal with photographers’ rights, and sell a creative, copyrighted or work-for-hire product/service that, while not as easily “stolen for use elsewhere,” is subject to a good deal of competition. Above-board, honest people and grab-your-ideas-and-undersell-you-later types alike.
Pushing your work farther and farther out into the world instead of walling it off clearly works. Foreword is my evidence.
Click through to Flickr and look at all the little notes by moving your mouse over the boxes on the photo. They’ll run you through all the stuff in the picture, including the icons, menu items, etc. (Warning: geek alert…;)
Sure, there are hassles. (Looking at new web servers [hosts] this week, for instance, so we can rebuild pages in the middle of the day without timeouts. You wondered why so few mid-day posts…?) It’s definitely a challenge to post regularly with the quality we’d all like to see — and that keeps traffic growing. Oh, and have I mentioned there’s still the rest of the web site to finish?
But it’s so worth it. Glad we can be here together, learning about book design. Whether it’s your first visit or your thousandth, thanks for coming by.
Posted by Giles, Monday, April 10, 2006, at 5:51 AM.
Posted to Book and design blogs | Book cover photography | Book design | Books, design, art | Business | Computers | Design | Ethics | Flickr | Freedoms and rights | Jobs | Love | Personal | Photography | Public domain | Publishing | Site news | Technology | Type and typography | Whatever | Writing
RSS Feed Renamed; Atom Feed Added
Many apologies to our RSS readers, but I’m changing the address of our RSS feed. It’s now named rss.xml instead of just index.xml, to better differentiate it from our new Atom feed. Please update your bookmarks with the feed of your choice — and please let me know of any problems or requests.
Also flat-out removed the icons from the sidebar — somewhere I hear applause — and redid the way entries list comments, trackbacks, “posted by” info, and categories to hopefully make reading and adding comments easier.
As always, feedback welcome. Thanks!
Posted by Giles, Thursday, March 30, 2006, at 11:56 PM.
Posted to Site news
Software Update
• FontExplorer X
…doesn’t work for me. It shows maybe a tenth of the previews, won’t move the files, won’t organize them, and won’t auto-activate them in the various applications (probably because it thinks they’re not complete, hence the lack of previews.)
The venerable Suitcase X1 also has one big advantage: huge preview area, small font list. FontExplorer gets it backwards, devoting more space to the font list. In FE’s defence, it can be a WYSIWYG menu, but apparently that requires that the previews work. (Unsurprisingly.) Once I have everything organized and tagged this layout might work, but have to get there, first!
I’m wondering if part of the problems I’m experiencing may be a permissions problem with Mac OS X. I want my fonts folder to be called “Font Library” and be at the root level of my hard drive. FE seems to want all the data in my users folder — but doesn’t list a help item or mention on the web site that it has to go there. No specific permissions error, either — just doesn’t work.
In short, a good first try. I’ll keep checking this one. (And, note to Extensis: I’m a licensed X1 user. Thanks for the notice on Fusion. Hmph. Your loss — I’m staying with X1 until FE is fixed. Have a feeling it won’t be too long.)
• Entourage/Thunderbird
I’ll be out of the office tomorrow and Wednesday, and have a list of things that have to get done before I leave — so in the middle of this, Enter Rage does its final face plant. “Oh, no,” was all I could keep saying. Sheesh. Bad timing!
But, after much coaxing, more than a little head-scratching, and some trial and error, Enter Rage is history, the mail’s migrated, and Thunderbird is in-house:
Installation went fairly easily — once I found this thread explaining how, except that the dragged files are already .mbox files, thus eliminating a step. Not exactly an intuitive import process, but being able to rescue 77 thousand emails from what seemed like certain death was worth it.
Now that it’s installed and working, I like it a great deal. The “vertical” arrangement — three-column panel of folders, email list, and email content — is brilliant. (And just what I want in FontExplorer. Hello, Linotype?) Junk controls that actually work, inline spell-checking, a nice “look,” and, most importantly, open source. That means, like Firefox, my browser of choice, the program is managed by people who care instead of companies that profit. Nice.
Using iCal to replace some of the calendaring functions that went away with Entourage, but the task management there isn’t great. Looking for a few tasks program with a robust notification system, if anyone can suggest such a beast.…
Posted by Giles, Monday, March 27, 2006, at 11:57 AM.
Posted to Business | Computers | Ethics | Freedoms and rights | Site news
Foreword: Three Years of Book Design Blogging
Many, many moons ago, it seems now, Amanda and I starting putting HTML “blog” posts regarding books and book design up on the ospreydesign.com site. By the end of 2002, we’d decided that we wanted to do it often, if not daily, as a way to expand our knowledge of book design and set me up for leaving Tropicana and go back to doing freelance design — and try to do book design — full-time.
Back then, the header was based on a photo of Haunting Sunshine, a title that’s aged well, and was 550 pixels wide (here scaled to fit):
Then, three years ago this weekend, March 17-21, 2003, Foreword became “offical.” We purchased Movable Type, got it working, enabled comments, and even had rotating headers. The same 550 pixels wide (and again scaled to fit), the site lost the ospreydesign tie-in (and gained a subdomain) in favor of an emphasis on community. This one was my fave:
The photo on the right was to have been a cover for a book Amanda was working on; she spent a good deal of time wandering about Florida gathing information and photos only to abandon it later. (Unfortunately, IMO.) The books on the left were photographed and Photoshopped in-house.
This one got the most questions — and was another Amanda thing:
Nope, I ain’t answering…;)
Readership that first “offical” month averaged 50/day, at least ten of which were family and friends. But it was a start. The plan from there was yearly redesigns, tons of great book design and publishing news and blurbs, and to build that community. I left the juice company in July, and ospreydesign was full-time again. Readership went over 500/day.
In March of ’04, the site gained the so-called “velvet” look:
Reflecting growing average screen sizes, the site grew to first 600, then 650 pixels wide, so we could better accomodate larger cover pictures. Readership climbed over 1000/day, Foreword started flirting with the top-10 returns in Google for “book design,” and life seemed good — for a while.
By October 2004, it was a different site, really, because things were strained to breaking between the two principle bloggers. Yet despite a change in flavor from lighter, quicker “look what I found” items to more thoughts and feelings and design, readership continued to climb.
By March 2005, Amanda and I had seperated, I’d moved to Georgia, and the site got … wider. I flat out didn’t have time to redo it completely, and knew that part of me wanted to do something more radical (read: a new logo), so in the end, I postponed. And you, dear readers, kept coming — over 3000/day, from all corners of the world. Foreword now flirted with the #1 Google return for “book design,” trading spots with Robin Williams and Amazon.
This year, March 2006, posts are sometimes sporadic, Amanda and I are lawyered up — damned shame, if you ask me — but, thanks to the support of my friends, your support, and with the help of a few talented fellow bloggers, the postings continue. The site even got partially redesigned, but ran aground when I realized I didn’t know how to do what I wanted for the main portion and have been too busy to learn — so it hangs. Maybe in a week or two. Might play with a few details here, too; some of the dingbats on the left haven’t worn too well for my taste, the comments still aren’t clear, and a couple of other little things. (As always, suggestions welcome.)
Meanwhile, Foreword’s now solidly #1 in the Google “book design” rank (out of, when searched without quotes, 512 million), readership is over 5000/day, and we’re going to keep posting on book design, books, photography, writing, design, and probably even too much personal stuff. For another three years — or, hopefully, thirty.
Thank you for stopping by. Thank you for commenting. Most of all, thank you being part of the community.
Posted by Giles, Friday, March 17, 2006, at 2:15 PM.
Posted to Book and design blogs | Book design | Books | Business | Design | Personal | Photography | Site news
Cover I Like Today
From what I understand, it’s not a great novel — but the cover has me intrigued:
Designed by Robbin Schiff.
Sorry for the light week. Tons going on — more over the weekend.