I've been meaning to blog about my guest book that I had made last year. I had visited Kent Ambler's studio a while back and was impressed that he had made a book showing his woodcut printmaking process. This made me want one. I too wanted to show process photos as well as finished work. After thinking about the book for a while, I decided to make it a guest book as well.I used a printing company called Blurb, and was impressed with the user friendly software. It did take me a while to get all of my photos in order and make sure my design was nice. They offered many sizes and formats as well as hard cover, soft cover, and hard cover with a jacket.
The book only took about a week to get here and cost around $50, including shipping.
I get a lot of comments on this book. Other artists seem very impressed and ask if I mind if they use this idea. Are you kidding? Please, please, please use this idea (that does not mean steal the design). I love seeing artists that have their sh*t together and that can present their work seriously and professionally.
Below are a few sample pages from the book. Left pages are for names and addresses and right pages are photographs.
artist statement on first page
back of bookInterested in being on the mailing list for real tangible postcards? Send me your address at carpenterpottery[at]bellsouth[dot]com.
16 comments:
My wife & mother in law used that Blurb site-program-thing to make a wedding album. Apparently it is quite versatile. Never thought of using it to make a guest book, though. Looks good!
Nice looking book. I think you should teach a seminar for those of us who are trying to get our sh*t together and present our work seriously and professionally.
genius. stealing it.
Fabulous. Thanks, Kyle.
Stealing it too! I have iphoto for my Mac and can email my photos right to the Mac store and get a book for around $30. Have done this for family photo/gifts but this is a great idea!!!! The photos are great. Nice keepsake, good gift for potter friends also. Thanks!!
Learning to create the content for our studio books was one of the things that pulled me towards blogging. We were creating the content, but only the people in the same room as the book could leaf through it. Customers really react positively to holding something like this in their hand. I know they seemed to look at me in a much more serious manner... and as a clay artist working a nitche, this helps a lot.
Now that it's done, are you going to offer to sell any?
Kyle - I happened to be browsing the Blurb website (we used it to make a catalogue of a student show at school) and ran across your book - probably about 2 months ago. I meant to write you - I thought it was awesome! So glad you posted about it!
Just finished mine on Blurb.com and had it out at an opening!
Installed the show on a Friday and had the book for the opening the next friday!
Plan to use it as a marketing tool when approaching other galleries.
wonderful idea!
Brilliant idea. I'm stealing it too, but using iPhoto. It's good to be a mac user.
Fantastic idea! I love the idea of combining a guest book with process photos.
favorite line from this post: "I love seeing artists that have their sh*t together and that can present their work seriously and professionally."
Yes!
beautiful book Kyle, thanks for sharing and showing us.
Beautiful! Afraid I'll be stealing this idea too... Thanks for posting and for the link. You should work out a way to get a referral fee from blurb. :-)
Miri
Great Idea Kyle. Looks great. Mind if we borrow the idea?
Ha Ha. I guess I should of read the whole post before I comment! Thank, For sharing the idea. It is a fun one.
I want people to use this idea. It makes us all look gooooood!
p.s. Walgreens offers a 2 inch book on it's website for like 5 bucks or so. These could be good "freebees" for the serious buyers. Just one of many ideas that I think about all of the time.
Thank you all for commenting!
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