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Design Matters with Linda Tischler

In the latest Design Matters interview, Debbie Millman talks to Fast Company’s design editor Linda Tischler about the current state of American design and how services like Kickstarter are changing the way designers work:

DESIGN MATTERS: Linda Tischler, Fast Company mp3

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Something for the Weekend, June 26th, 2009

2009 Penguin Design Award — Peter Adlington’s abstract design for The Secret History by Donna Tart (pictured above) took 1st place. More on the Penguin Blog.

The Good Design Book — Christopher Simmons, graphic designer and principle at the San Francisco-based design firm MINE, records the progress and process of writing and designing his new book on design (via Unbeige). The whole concept reminded me that I should also mention the crowdsourced Smashing Magazine Book.

OK, Go — Kassia Krozser, Kirk Biglione, and Kat Meyer (and an unnamed “veteran of the book industry”), put their money where their collective mouth is, and launch digital publisher Quartet Press (and they’re accepting submissions).

The Debrief — Organizer Hugh McGuire pens his personal thoughts on BookCamp Toronto for Book Oven.

One of the most powerful things about BookCamp, compared with other events I’ve been to, is that this was not just a grassroots group. There was high-level engagement from the publishing industry, with publishers, editors, senior VPs, production managers, marketers, and interns, and everything in between. It was great to see the honest debate and conversation being lead by these insiders, who are truly grappling with the future of their business and their passion.

And VANTAP‘s Sean “Crazy Horse” Cranbury  adds his 2 cents on #bcto09 at the Books on The Radio blog, and teases BookCamp Vancouver.

Vile Bodies — The 1930 first edition cover of Evelyn Waugh’s second novel seen at BibliOdyssey.

And last, but not least…

Apples and Oranges — The article about the evolution of Amazon by Adam L. Penenberg, author of the forthcoming Viral Loop: How Social Networks Unleash Revolutionary Business Growth, that launched a great Twitter chat with @FastCompany and yesterday’s ’26 Things…’ list (which could have easily been twice as long). 

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26 Things Not Related To Amazon

Oh dear. I’m really not an Amazon-hater. But this morning I inadvisedly took Fast Company magazine to task on Twitter for only writing book industry stories about Amazon and the Kindle.

In their response, Fast Company rightly pointed out that the Fast Talk section of the April edition of the magazine  featured technology — aside from the Kindle —  that is changing book publishing. It included  (short) interviews with Josh Hug, CEO and co-founder of Shelfari (which is in fact owned by Amazon), Julia Cheiffetz, Senior Editor at HarperStudio, the team behind Scholastic’s 39 Clues, Steve Haber developer of the Sony e-reader, and Eileen Gittins, CEO of Blurb.

Funnily enough, I had actually bought April issue of Fast Company and completely forgotten about this (admittedly somewhat forgettable) feature. Suitably chastened, I apologised for my sweeping generalization.

I am grateful (and slightly amazed) that Fast Company took the time to reply to my glib missive and put me straight. However, I do think there is a tendency — not just isolated to Fast Company — to use Amazon as the only frame of reference in stories about the book trade.

With this in mind,  I challenged myself to pull together a quick list of current book-related things that I think are exciting that don’t (as far as know) have anything to do with Amazon (yet).

So here is a completely personal, off-the-cuff list of 26 book companies, ideas, projects, blogs, websites and trends that I think are inspiring, interesting, exciting, or worth watching (and are unconnected to Amazon):

(And yes, I realise there is a certain irony in writing a list that’s not about Amazon just to prove not everything has to do with Amazon)

  1. The Afterword
  2. Authonomy
  3. BookArmy
  4. BookCamp
  5. The Book Cover Archive
  6. The Book Depository
  7. Bookkake
  8. BookNet Canada
  9. Cell phone novels
  10. Drawn & Quarterly*
  11. Faber Finds
  12. FaceOut Books
  13. Gollancz’s collaboration with the D&AD Global Student Awards
  14. Google Books
  15. Gutenberg Rally beta
  16. Harlequin
  17. iPhones
  18. McNally Robinson
  19. Shortcovers
  20. Unbooks
  21. Twelve
  22. Twitter
  23. VANTAP
  24. Vromans
  25. We Tell Stories
  26. WW Norton’s Book Design Archive

Who or what would be on your list?

*Full disclosure: D+Q are distributed in Canada by Raincoast Books.

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