one. We did it! The St. Mary Medical Center history book is finally put to rest. The third book in a three book series took more than 18 months to complete, which included 2 months of design time on my part. This time around the project went smooth and I had a lot of motivation and inspiration. 🙂
Working on a project of this size comes with its ups and downs. Weighing in at a little more than 5 lbs., 416 pages. This 9″x12″ hard cover, perfect bound monster was a delight to design. I had some challenges along the way, like a crazy deadline and a zillion rounds of changes.
The cover stays true to the look and feel that was created with the first book, the Community Hospital – An Impossible Dream, that was completed in 2007. The inside pages mimic a lot of the same elements and design choices to make the three books as consistent as possible.
Author Jane Bomberger and Editor Debra Jenkins were on hand to sign a few books in our closing celebration of this project. The three of us signed more that 3oo books and had a book signing event that was attended by friends and family, employees and administration. The book is a great reminder for those who helped build this hospital. It was great to see and hear the comments from people who started at the hospital more than 30 years ago or to meet children of parents that went to school at the hospital back in the early 19oos.
Here are some sample pages from the book….
I had a chance to catch up with our printer for this project and ask him a few questions.
You’ve been in this business for many years and have had a lot of books come across your desk. What are your thoughts on the design of the St. Mary’s History book?
CARL: I grew up in the business, and I’ve been officially employed for 5 years. We’re running 80 or so projects at any given time, and a good third of these are full-color books. These tend to be coffee-table type books or educational ones. Content-wise, the St. Mary’s book is a bit of both, and the book beautifully transitions from subject to subject throughout. Good design should be aesthetically pleasing, but I believe it should be functional as well, especially when conveying a lot of information. The St. Mary’s book achieves this.
From a manufacturing perspective, I like the size, the printed endsheets, and the shrink wrapping. Without the shrink wrapping, the gloss laminated black ink would show scuffing. That’s a technical detail. However, from a consumer’s point-of-view, shrink wrapping means their copy is “new.” I love opening a shrinkwrapped book.
You’ve mentioned in the past that our organization has turned around our projects in a pretty fast pace. In your experience what is the typical timeline for creating a 400 page book from start to finish like ours?
CARL: “Fast” is an understatement. We work with numerous museums on similar projects, and it typically takes two-years before we get print-ready files. One advantage that you, Jane, Sherri (from previous books) and Debra have is that you all bring tremendous focus, vision, and accountability to the work. A smaller team makes this possible.
Having these books printed in another country was a new experience for us, but with your help and the professionalism of your company we have managed to complete 4 successful projects (1 children’s book; 3history books) with you. Can you expand upon how you work with your clients and printer to delivery amazing quality work on time?
CARL: Thank you for the kind comment.
Like your team, each of us at HeuleGordon/InnerWorkings has our specialities. I focus, for example, on defining the specifications. Missy Goggins, in production, coordinates paper purchasing, printing, binding, and logistics. Mr. Kook is our production assistant in Seoul deserves credit as well. He makes sure that our projects hit the presses on time and make it to Port when the container is ready to ship. We’ve produced international print since 1994, and we frequently travel throughout North America, Asia and Europe to vet our suppliers. Overtime, we’ve developed close relationships with our overseas production partners. They give us optimal production schedules, quality, and pricing. In turn, we provide pristine files and we always pay on time. Honesty, transparency, and a great willingness to satisfy the end customer drives our work. We operate on the same page.
Miracletwentyone 