I stumbled onto a family project about a year ago when my parents were visiting. My grandmother was putting together a book of our family's history based mostly on her own memories and a few verifications on the details from those with authority to know better.
At the time I expressed interested, I lacked the materials to accomplish this feat. But with a little help from other family members, I was able to acquire Adobe CS3 and quickly set out to teach myself the ropes. Fortunately, my exposure to a vast array of layout software in my nearly 10 years in newspapers made me a quick study for InDesign. I can see why a lot of designers like it... lots of details within your control — or not, if you set things up right.
So I went about creating styles for the book. Text choices. Layout. Libraries! STYLE SHEETS! (OK, I kinda geeked out about it.)
Admittedly, the layout concept you see here isn't my own. It's an idea one of my editors wanted us to attempt with a prior project — a way of "linking" peripheral information without bogging down the stories. But we could never quite get it to work, mostly because it was hard to get everyone to truly understand the vision. (He got it. I got it. The masses... didn't, quite.) But once I started editing my grandmothers writings, I knew this format would be perfect, allowing for tangents while keeping a relatively straight narrative.
The book is far from finished — heck, these pages aren't even final — and I've been feeling bad about that. I got lost creating blogs, looking for jobs, and, OK, playing Wii and hanging out with my cousins. But I have few new motivators that should put me back on track in no time flat, and I'm excited to get further into the book (there's more pictures available!). Regardless, I've been relieved to discover that I have no trouble jumping back into InDesign. About 10 minutes to reorient myself, and I'm a machine for several hours after that.
Thirty-three days and counting...
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