You know you're from Chch when ...

I've always wondered when things get bad if human nature would take over and people would want to find ways of picking themselves up.
That's exactly what happened after the February earthquake in Christchurch.
Facebook ruled my life and word quickly spread about a great page of one liners all starting with the phrase 'You know you're from Chch when ...'. Well that was it for us. My husband and I went to sleep smiling after reading the one liners on my iphone every night.
They were hilarious and all thought up by people who were in the same bad situation as us. All scared, tired and living on their nerves looking for some light relief.
Talking with a friend about how fantastic this page was sparked the idea of what a good book it would make. Now there was a thought that was worth following through.
I found an email address and cheekily sent a messsage asking if the page owner Bruce Raines if he had ever thought of turning the page into a book. He was keen and the rest is history.
The book You know you're from Christchurch when ... is available in everywhere, published by Harper Collins, with a big thank you to Bill Honeybone, who is still enjoying the giggle.
It's so good to know that human nature will always come out on top!

Travelling the country

Kim’s out and about a lot over the next couple of months. If you have project you’d like to talk to her about she’ll be in:

• Dunedin 3 May
• Auckland and Hamilton (travelling down to Taupo) 17- 22 May
• Wellington 25 May
• Auckland 24-30 June
• Brisbane 3-13 July (fun part)
• Auckland 20-22 July

Any excuse for a cuppa and cake, just drop her a line kim@bookdesign.co.nz

Opening a branch in Auckland

On the 22 Feb we were supposed to be looking at offices in central Christchurch as we have outgrown our lovely space here. But, that is no longer an option, and well, it got us thinking ‘why do we have to be based just in Chch?'

Auckland makes good sense for a place to be when for a lot of our clients it’s home . For us it means we can guarantee our service away from the shaking and power cuts and help to spread the load with room to grow.

Please no volcanic eruptions now though or anymore tornadoes. Actually that is a point. We are planning to set up in Birkenhead with a design team and Kim traveling between the two branches.

We’d really like to hear your thoughts. Will us having an office in Auckland make a difference to you?

Digital Studio Management

As Christchurch was rattling and rolling in February, we were implementing a new digital production system. The perfect thing to try and do when stress levels are high and the patience low.
But luckily we have survived both situations and love our new Streamtime digital studio management system. (The quakes can just bugger off, we'll never like them).
For our clients and suppliers you'll notice a huge difference in our turn around times for quotes. The system is now automated and all our forms are produced and emailed in one easy action and then transferred to the job/task sheet. It's just fantastic.
The next bit is opening up the backend so clients are able to log on at anytime and see how their budgets are progressing in real time. Hopefully this feature will go live in the next week.
The big advantage is we are now able to standardise all the different parts of production. Kim doesn't have to continually explain how and why she costed a project a certain way to Trisha who used to just stand there and shake her head. It's much less stressful this way and hopefully, more 'streamlined' for everyone.
We really look forward to hearing your feedback on how your find the system. Good or bad.

Budgets/Pricing

We are hearing more and more that publishers are looking for a cheaper, cost effective service that compliments their inhouse team.
Our team here at Book Design is structured so we can offer top-end design and production, as well as efficient basic layout. With two senior designers, a junior designer and a mac op we can offer a pricing structure that suits your project. We have a sliding price scale dependent on the amount of design that is required.
Just ask, or even better, tell us your budget and we can come up with a team solution.

What has winning a Book Design Award meant ?

Last year we were lucky enough to have our design for Year 9 Graphics chosen as the Best Book Design for an Educational Book at the PANZ Book Design Awards and the design for Wonky Donkey gained a High Commended Certificate in the Picture Book category.

Apart from being totally gobsmacked (I really thought Geography on the Edge was taking away the big Educational Book prize), we were totally unprepared for the impact this award would have on our business. We’d received a Highly Commended in 2009 and this had certainly raised our profile, but it was nothing compared with 2010.

I’ve heard publishers say that winning awards doesn’t necessarily increase sales. Being shortlisted might, but not the big event. We found that our business became more reputable over night. It gave us credit, which helped open doors, that we had trouble previously opening.

All these have positively affected our bottom line and have given us the opportunity to grow. With more staff, better servers and more opportunities, almost 12 months later we are prepared to take an even bigger step and open another branch in Auckland.

The best bit though, is being held aloft by your peers. The fantastic comments from designers and illustrators whom we have admired for years, just makes all the hard work seem worthwhile. Design is like most service industries, you are only as good as your last book. But gee, the next great book is what makes us get out of bed each morning. Bring it on!

Thanks so much for PANZ and all the sponsors who make these awards possible for our industry. Here at Book Design, we really appreciate the opportunities you are giving us. 

Easter: Which one will you choose?

Each year we like to celebrate Easter with our clients. This year it seemed more important than ever. So we created a special Easter game. The story goes like this:

After the February quake, people here in Christchurch were suffering from ‘quake brain’ and then, for many, depression set in. 

We all needed to find a way to get our feelings out and then move forward.

Being designers, and all young at heart, we came up with our own version of this wonderful classic children’s game.

The Book Design way involved each of us writing down our thoughts on how the Earthquake made us feel. All the negative ones ...

• What will happen next?
• Constant tiredness
• Sadness at all the loss
• Feeling cheated

Then on top of these we wrote how we are going to move on ...

• Sharing with others
• Focusing on work
• Thankful for family and friends being safe
• Wanting to succeed
• Having unbroken bottles of wine

What we found was that we all shared the same fears and we all had many different ways to move forward. 

Our team was united and able to offer each other support in moving on.

Now we want to give back to you in thanks for all the fantastic support. If you didn't receive the game, but would like one. Just drop us a line.