WNA #1: New book title, KIKK Festival, and the toughest chapter yet.
Greetings!
Welcome to the first (kinda) weekly update on the book and all things related. I’m writing this one from the train 🚃 on my way to Belgium.
Book updates
🥹 Yes, I changed the title (again)
Meeting with a potential publisher made me think. Not so much about the overall concept of the book; mostly about how it should be marketed. Publishers, of course, are in business to make money. Before they commit, they want to know one thing: “Will this book sell?”
And that’s exactly what my fiancé-publisher told me: “I want to show your book to my sales team, and I want them to say ‘Yes, people will buy this book.’”
Regardless of what we tell our kids: everyone judges a book by its cover. Covers, and subsequently titles, sell books. My previous title was… well, it covered the contents. But it didn’t spark anything. It was kinda boring.
On the commute home after meeting with the publisher, a thought popped up in my mind, and it stayed there for days. One of the most fundamental lessons in the book is about artistry, and specifically, that we are not artists. At the same time, this is a truth many of us are reluctant to accept.
A controversial statement that makes my target reader think “Wait, what? Why?” makes for a fantastic book title. So there we have it: We’re Not Artists.
✨ Stickers and cards
I’m currently on my way to KIKK Festival in Namur, Belgium, which is expected to attract 25,000 visitors. The last couple of times I visited a design-related conference, I forgot to bring any promo material for the book. Not this time. I printed a stack of simple yet eye-catching stickers, and small cards featuring — hopefully — thought-provoking highlights of the book.
🧗♀️ The toughest chapter yet
Writing a book is like scaling a mountain. Sometimes, you cover a lot of ground in a short amount of time. Other times, it takes you ages to move a few measly meters.
Writing the chapter on Style (which will be part of Part 1: Creation) is one of those uphill battles. I’ve been on it for ovev two months, I’ve talked to multiple knowledgeable people about it (including Casper, shout out to Attak.co), and I still haven’t cracked it. But… I’m getting there. Here’s part of the introduction. Thoughts?
…
The subject of style is one of the things keeping the idea that we’re artists alive. Many of us believe we should have a recognizable style, that “our” style is central to our identity, and that that style is going to make us famous.
We shouldn’t, it isn’t, and it won’t. Here’s why.
What is style, anyway?
Style is not mysterious nor elusive. It’s nothing more than a specific blend of ingredients that makes something instantly recognizable. It’s similar to a dish's flavor, shaped by attributes such as taste, smell, texture, temperature, and presentation.
The difference between flavor and style is the types of attributes. In our work, there are only three: thematics, aesthetics, and techniques. And their sequence is crucial.
…
Thoughts and notes
“Design is reduction of randomness; the more thoroughly designed something is, the less randomness it contains. This definition holds a striking parallel with thermodynamics.”
“There is no good art. There is no bad art. There’s only pure and impure.”
“Great books take a few hours to read and a decade to understand.”