DESCRIPTION The Blumenthals' Anniversary Book CLIENT Mrs. Blumenthal DATE July 2009 DESIGN CREDITS Steven Blumenthal PRINT CREDITS blurb.com TYPE CREDITS Helvetica

QUANTITY PRODUCED 1 PRODUCTION COST $22 PRODUCTION TIME 5 weeks DIMENSIONS: WIDTH × HEIGHT × DEPTH 7 in × 7 in PAGE COUNT 68 PRINT METHOD Digital PAPER STOCK Coated stock NUMBER OF COLORS CMYK BINDING Perfect binding

Every now and then we encounter a project that does not exactly fit the FPO mold, but a project that we think might inspire a few of you to do something you haven’t tried before. Such is the case with the book that Steven Blumenthal designed and produced via the online digital printer blurb.com as he and his wife set out to celebrate a year of wedded bliss.

Traditionally the first anniversary gift is made of paper. I was inspired to do this many months ago while reading through our old text messages — I was just cracking up, and realized this would be a great source for a diary or journal project. I found a piece of shareware that downloads text messages from your phone. Then I edited a heap of text messages down to about 15 per month. I picked one key text for each month and illustrated it. I created the book in InDesign and exported it to a PDF. Then I sent it to blurb.com who did the printing.

When sending something to print at blurb.com or any of its competitors the main fear is usually color. You know you will get a decent coated stock, a slightly heavier coated cover and a decent binding — not mediocre, but not stellar. Color is the one thing that we as designers obsess and fret about to a fault, but it looks like this project printed rather nicely with clean bright colors. I am sure a gushing wife is holding dearly to the one and only copy.

Steven, the stakes are high for Cotton next year.