{"id":610,"date":"2015-10-18T00:13:57","date_gmt":"2015-10-18T00:13:57","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blogs.law.harvard.edu\/lamont\/?p=610"},"modified":"2020-06-20T18:42:48","modified_gmt":"2020-06-20T18:42:48","slug":"crowdsourcing-book-design-vs-experienced-professional-book-designers","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/archive.blogs.harvard.edu\/lamont\/2015\/10\/18\/crowdsourcing-book-design-vs-experienced-professional-book-designers\/","title":{"rendered":"Crowdsourcing book design vs. using experienced professional book designers"},"content":{"rendered":"

Earlier this year, I started a project to redesign the In 30 Minutes<\/em> book series. There were several reasons for this, including:<\/p>\n

    \n
  1. \"DropboxThe existing design, while eye-catching and effective, was beginning to look a little dated.<\/li>\n
  2. There were some issues around placement of template elements, such as the large clock taking up too much space to fit in a long subtitle (see the inset sample).<\/li>\n
  3. A desire to have a new, more modern look in preparation for expanding distribution of the series to retail and other outlets.<\/li>\n<\/ol>\n

    Every publisher knows that relaunching or redesigning a publication is a big deal. That’s true for books as well as websites, magazines, pamphlets, and other types of media that have a visual identity. Oftentimes there are restrictions or requirements associated with the redesign that require special attention, such as wanting to preserve a color scheme or design element. Think of the Apple logo, which has undergone several iterations over the past 40 years<\/a>. For much of the time, the apple symbol has remained constant even while the colors and depth have changed.<\/p>\n

    For my books, the existing designer declined to take on the job — it would take a lot of effort, and as a full-time graphic designer with a well-known magazine publisher he did not have the bandwidth to devote to the project on nights and weekends.<\/p>\n

    So I tried using a design crowdsourcing service called 99designs<\/a>. The idea is the customer pays a flat fee for a design template, and then designers all over the world compete by submitting bids. Here are some of my observations about choosing 99designs<\/a> from last May:<\/p>\n

    The concept is not without controversy, and many experienced designers don\u2019t participate \u2014 it goes against their beliefs about the client\/designer relationship, the prize doesn\u2019t come close to their standard rates, and there\u2019s a real chance they may not win. But it opens some doors for younger designers, as well as designers from other countries who otherwise would have a tough time recruiting clients outside of their regions.<\/p>\n

    I liked it because it gives me the chance to see ideas from lots of different designers, and moves fast \u2014 the contest can wrap up in about a week. So I decided to give it a shot.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

    There were a lot of submissions and ideas from the designers participating in the contest. I eventually chose a winner … but decided not to use the design. It was good, but it was missing depth. It also did not seem so flexible for books with longer titles or subtitles.<\/p>\n

    Friends in the publishing industry were helpful in giving feedback and also recommending some professional designers. I eventually chose TLC Graphics<\/a> and have been very happy with the results. You can see the new look in the design for one of the first books that will carry it, iPhone 6 & iPhone 6S In 30 Minutes<\/em><\/a>:<\/p>\n

    \"iPhone<\/a>There are other color combinations in the works as well:<\/p>\n

    \"Four<\/a>The old covers are gradually being switched out. For some books, the interiors are being completely revised, including LinkedIn In 30 Minutes<\/a>. I hope to have the entire process done by spring 2016.<\/p>\n

    In summary, while I am glad I tried a crowdsourced service and the price was reasonable, for the series designs a dedicated professional book designer has worked for me each time I have updated the look and feel of the books (first in 2012, and now in 2015). Besides looking better, I feel that the designs also had the necessary flexibility required for this type of series.<\/p>\n

    I am happy to discuss my experience with 99designs and working with professional designers in the comments section below.<\/p>\n

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     <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

    Earlier this year, I started a project to redesign the In 30 Minutes book series. There were several reasons for this, including: The existing design, while eye-catching and effective, was beginning to look a little dated. There were some issues around placement of template elements, such as the large clock taking up too much space […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3864,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[57022,77552],"tags":[40,99,882,6208,85149],"class_list":["post-610","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-e-books","category-lean","tag-books","tag-business","tag-design","tag-ui","tag-ux"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/archive.blogs.harvard.edu\/lamont\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/610","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/archive.blogs.harvard.edu\/lamont\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/archive.blogs.harvard.edu\/lamont\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/archive.blogs.harvard.edu\/lamont\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3864"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/archive.blogs.harvard.edu\/lamont\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=610"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/archive.blogs.harvard.edu\/lamont\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/610\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1203,"href":"https:\/\/archive.blogs.harvard.edu\/lamont\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/610\/revisions\/1203"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/archive.blogs.harvard.edu\/lamont\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=610"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/archive.blogs.harvard.edu\/lamont\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=610"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/archive.blogs.harvard.edu\/lamont\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=610"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}