widerhall: about writing a chapter for a book - and designing the whole thing
It is funny how you always meet twice.
A lot of people don't know, that I started my career in an advertising agency in the town i grew up in. I was 15 years old and every saturday I would go to work for vorauer and friends and would do the layout for 60+ pages product catalogs for Hartlauer - an Austrian electronics company. It was a tough job but i learned to work hands on and to become really fast in xpress :). My boss at that time was a crazy guy who taught me a lot about being bold, speaking your mind and staying true to your opinion. He loved to drive fast cars, spoke to loud often and was always ready for a bad joke or two. He also was one of the most honest marketing guys I have met in Austria. When I moved to Vienna we lost contact.
More then 10 years later we met again randomly, connected again instantly and one of the first question this guy asked me is: "Do you want to write a book with me and my partner? We think it is time to write a honest book about Marketing & Design. A Book without bullshit, you know?"
Without hesitating i said YES. Because I knew that we would speak the same language.
Half a year later we hold this new book about marketing, design and going back to the roots in our hands. Jörg and Michael – the two main authors – put together a team of professionals to write about this weird and beloved sector from different perspectives. I wrote a chapter about communication and design and did the illustrations and the editorial design for the book.
To be honest – there were more than 10 versions of my chapter and I am still not 100% sure, weather the printed version it is the best version I could write, but the main topics and issues are in there and I am proud to tick off this box. I have the biggest respect for authors and writers and it is definitely one of the hardest crafts, but I think we did a great job. We all spoke our minds and brought it into a nice looking collection. The topics are straight forward and more relevant then ever. In general it is an ode to the human centered design, that fact that beauty without concept won't sell and about being bold instead of having a broad target audience that includes everyone. The best part – design wise – is, that the guys had the guts to let me skip the cover and cut straight to the intro. Which we printed on the first page. I was also allowed to use one type and one color only - just to keep it simple. Thanks for that! Buy a version here or drop me a line to get a reading test of my chapter.
