Nate Burgos's Blog, page 34

Spending time making BROKEN

Clock icon designed by Andy Fuchs from The Noun Project collection

In the first post about how my book BROKEN was made, the importance of time was emphasized—specifically, that it took four years to make the book available. During that time, I needed to find a new co-writer—a search fulfilled by going to the gatherings of CreativeMornings. It took time to write and re-write, edit and re-edit, design and redesign, launch and promote, and promote again. Time was essential to all of these ac...

Rebel in Ink: Tattoo Artist Stephanie Brown at Chicago CreativeMornings #27

Photo by Nate Burgos. View More.

CreativeMornings’ global theme for February was Rebel. At the Chicago chapter, Painter and Tattoo Artist Stephanie Brown literally illustrated this theme using ink, skin, steady eyes and a steady hand—focused on fulfilling a personal artistic vision.



This is a gutsy statement for two reasons: it takes guts to do the kind of work you easily see yourself doing, and it takes guts to see a creative gap and take a creative dive to fill it, yourself. A common characte...

Public-speaking notes: Talked about BROKEN at the Institute of Design, IIT, in Chicago

Presentation icon designed by Daniel Flp from The Noun Project collection

I had my first opportunity to discuss BROKEN: Navigating the Ups and Downs of the Circus called Work with a small group at the Institute of Design, Illinois Institute of Technology, in Chicago. This was my first time publicly presenting my new book.

I’ve been reflecting here and there on my public-speaking experiences, because public speaking is a good skill to have. It’s one that I try to excel at, if only on a basic lev...

Wisdom at CreativeMornings: Maira Kalman, George Lois, Milton Glaser

At the New York chapter of CreativeMornings, three creative legends shared the wealth of their experience with attendees.

Maira Kalman on Moments


Photograph by Katherine Miles Jones

Maira Kalman has illustrated many covers for The New Yorker and writes children’s books. In her CreativeMornings/New York talk, traveling was a refrain. Wandering has informed her imagination of what to draw next. Whether it’s a short walk or a long trip, moving unveils moments. Moments inspire Kalman. Not...

Choosing Your Writing Tools

During the tour for his book “An Appetite for Wonder: The Making of a Scientist” (2013), evolutionary biologist Richard Dawkins was asked about his writing method at the California Institute of Technology in Pasadena. His answer:

“I never write with a pen. I always type on a computer. I, more or less, have forgotten to write with a pen. As with anybody who gets [a copy of] their book signed will see.”

Dawkins also added that before computers were prevalent, he typed his manuscripts.

It...

Patronage Package 2 of Duly Discovered

Books

“Great on the Job: What to Say, How to Say It. The Secrets of Getting Ahead” by Jodi Glickman

“Typography Fundamentals” by Kristin Cullen

“Designing Context” by Andrew Hinton

“Elie’s Books” by Ciara Panacchia

“The Doodle Revolution” by Sunni Brown
Discovered via CBS News Sunday

Design

Book covers designed by Clare Skeats for stories by Philip K. Dick

Book covers designed by Jason Gabbert

Drawing and Illustration

“Pancakes!” print illustrated by Sarah Becan

“Design vs Cancer: Designers Unite”
Discove...

I like CreativeMornings—a lot

CreativeMornings inventor Tina Roth Eisenberg at the debut gathering in Chicago (Summer, 2011). Photo by Nate Burgos. View more.

CreativeMornings is a monthly breakfast lecture series, for the creative community, started by Tina Roth Eisenberg of Swissmiss. What originated in Brooklyn, New York, has evolved into a platform with kindred chapters established throughout the world.

It’s no secret that I’m an avid CreativeMornings enthusiast through my write-ups. Based on my experience of going to p...

Choosing the right fonts for BROKEN

Text icon designed by Sergey Krivoy from The Noun Project collection

Selecting a typeface for a book’s design is not a trivial matter.(1) When the manuscript of BROKEN was close to completion, I took a portion of the copy and typeset it. All along, I assumed I would use a couple from my staple group of fonts that includes Adobe Garamond, Caslon, Helvetica Neue, and Univers. Nothing wrong with these typefaces—they are beautiful and reliable. But for this book, I wanted to try something differen...

Defining BROKEN’s Structure

Two methods were used when writing BROKEN: Navigating the Ups and Downs of the Circus Called Work, and they are tried and true standbys: note-taking and clustering.

For note-taking, the Web-based tool Backpack (defunct but remains available to current customers) by Basecamp (formerly called 37signals) was used. It’s a really simple way to virtually store and organize information. Over seven months, thoughts and findings were entered into what is called a Writeboard in Backpack. What started as...

Pursuing the architecture of writing: Designer and Novelist Elaine Chen

Elaine Chen was a former co-worker of mine. A thoughtful art director who, unknown to me until now, is a wordsmith. This is especially marked by the fact that she has finished writing her first novel! It’s called The Good Brother, an upcoming title by ChiZine Publications. Here, Elaine shares her thoughts about designing and taking on one of the most intimidating forms of storytelling:

There’s a strong (and highly welcoming) pattern of designers as writers, not only as bloggers, but as st...