Journal

Five Simple Steps. Available 2nd February, 2009.

A long time ago, two years ago in fact, I sort of announced I’d have a book ready the other side of Christmas. Ha! Embarrassingly, that deadline came and went as life, and work, got in the way. And, writing a book, especially a self-published book it turns out, is incredibly difficult. But, a few months ago, this project has had new life breathed into it, and I’m pleased to say, the book will be available on February 2nd 2009 in PDF format.

Not much has changed

During the last two years, the basic concept of the book hasn’t changed, even though the web has. This book is about practical graphic design theory, and how you can apply it to the web. As I said back in 2006 (!)


Like my Five Simple Steps articles, the book will be based on five steps you can work on to improve your design. These vary from very short and simple things like how to set a list correctly, to how to design a complex, modular grid system. They’re not meant to be a complete design lesson in the varying fields. More like a refresher for those people who have design schooling and a brief, practical lesson for those who don’t.

There’s a new website

We have a new website for the book: http://www.fivesimplesteps.co.uk. The release version of the site was beautifully built by Steven Teerlinck http://steventeerlinck.be using the Codeigniter framework. There’s some clever stuff in there for me to manage sending coupons, timed discounts (eg a christmas sale period), and automated PDF licence encoding.

The new Five Simple Steps book website

I’m going to be blogging about it a little bit as I go, but mostly, you can follow the progress on Flickr, and Twitter.

Will there be a physical book?

Over the past two years, and more recently, this question has been asked a lot. The short answer is yes, but it kind of depends on sales. I’d like to produce a really special, beautiful limited edition hardback. But, the thing is, it’s a considerable investment for even a run of 1000. That’s not including storage and fulfilment. The plan is to have the PDF available through Lulu for those who want it, but, as it’s a full colour book, it probably won’t be that cheap.

So, yes, I hope there will be a hardback. I can’t wait to design a real, physical book again.

Can I still use my money-off voucher?

Yes you can. You’ll be emailed a unique code a few hours before the release of the book.

So, that’s it. The project is not dead, it’s very alive and I’m working feverishly to get it released in 9 weeks time. No doubt I’ll blog about it nearer the time anyway. 

Comments

Great stuff Mark! Really looking forward to seeing it - I suspect this will be hugely popular. Good luck with the launch.

Miles Dowsett's Gravatar

Miles Dowsett
Mon 1st Dec 2008
at 4:50 pm

Very Cool!
Looking forward to the release. Best of Luck

Aaron Irizarry's Gravatar

Aaron Irizarry
Mon 1st Dec 2008
at 4:53 pm

Oh, Mark, I’m sorry to be pointing this out, but the ‘Available February 2nd ’09’ badge on the site (and on the screen shot of the site in this post) has an opening single quote instead of an apostrophe in the ‘ ’09’ part. Again: Sorry.

Jonathan McNicol's Gravatar

Jonathan McNicol
Mon 1st Dec 2008
at 5:15 pm

Awesome! This goes on my shopping list.

BTW, What typeface are you using for the book title “Designing for the Web”?

Jonathan D'mello's Gravatar

Jonathan D'mello
Mon 1st Dec 2008
at 5:18 pm

@Jonathan McNicolThank you for that keen eye - good spot - bloody opentype.

@Jonathan D’mello The typeface used is Jubilat Bold (http://www.dardenstudio.com/typefaces/jubilat-characters)

Mark Boulton's Gravatar

Mark Boulton
Mon 1st Dec 2008
at 5:24 pm

Great stuff mark.

Looking forward to the release in the New Year.

Steve Avery's Gravatar

Steve Avery
Mon 1st Dec 2008
at 5:24 pm

I’m exhiting about it!
I’m sure will be an excellent job.

See You in February… ;)

Antonio Pascotto's Gravatar

Antonio Pascotto
Mon 1st Dec 2008
at 5:48 pm

Awesome. Can’t wait for the release. How about an email subscription so we can be notified when its available?

Dan Lee's Gravatar

Dan Lee
Mon 1st Dec 2008
at 6:29 pm

I’m looking forward to this just as much as Dan Lee is; Mark, perhaps you could use MailChimp or Campaign Monitor (as recently redesigned by Jesse Bennett-Chamberlain) to set up an email newsletter. I don’t follow non-personal Twitter accounts, i.e. brands or product updates, I’m a blog subscriber (so you’ll hook me that way) but I imagine you’ll see some benefits from collecting emails for the launch, especially if visitors to http://www.fivesimplesteps.co.uk can simply bash in an email address for notification.

Neil's Gravatar

Neil
Mon 1st Dec 2008
at 9:44 pm

Can’t wait for this! really enjoy your blog Mark, and this book should be great.

Jonathan's Gravatar

Jonathan
Tue 2nd Dec 2008
at 9:37 am

I’m so curious for your book and bookmarked the link… Gonna take a look at it in february.

Rezepte für Diabetiker's Gravatar

Rezepte für Diabetiker
Tue 2nd Dec 2008
at 10:39 am

Looking forward to this.  Always appreciate approaches that champion the simple things.

Alexander Bobin's Gravatar

Alexander Bobin
Tue 2nd Dec 2008
at 12:28 pm

woohoo! I’ve been waiting for a long time for this bad boy

Darren McPherson's Gravatar

Darren McPherson
Tue 2nd Dec 2008
at 2:11 pm

Oh, I can’t wait. It is added to my Christmas list. Yeah!

Jody Desbiens's Gravatar

Jody Desbiens
Tue 2nd Dec 2008
at 7:13 pm

Glad to see you’ve found those windows in your time to finalise the book. Im looking forward to it.
BTW, daft question I know, but the fivesimplesteps site & three other in the past week have asked me if I will allow a font thats on my hard drive , but not installed, to be used in my browser (safari0. How is this done?

Lee's Gravatar

Lee
Wed 3rd Dec 2008
at 2:25 am

I’ve waited so long for your book Mark. Congratulations on finishing it. Dying to read it!

Atomised: the web design co-operative's Gravatar

Atomised: the web design co-operative
Wed 3rd Dec 2008
at 4:05 am

One comment - Lulu.com allows you to print single run copies of books at a reasonable price.  You upload a pdf and a cover wrap and you’re good to go.  There are no annoying lulu stickers or advertisements on the actual book, which is nice.

It’s not ideal, but it gives people the opportunity to have a physical copy.  I know that I much prefer a paper copy with regards to a design book.

All the best, and good luck!

Susie's Gravatar

Susie
Wed 3rd Dec 2008
at 4:23 am

Hi Mark, Congratulations on getting through this. Now I’m really looking forward to Feb 2nd to when we can get it.

David Morris's Gravatar

David Morris
Wed 3rd Dec 2008
at 9:35 am

Hi Mark, I’ve scheduled the release-date of your book and I’m very curious… ...but I’m sure, that you’ll do excellent work - like in your blog. ;-)

Suchmaschinenoptimierung's Gravatar

Suchmaschinenoptimierung
Wed 3rd Dec 2008
at 1:03 pm

Nice! I will bokmark Fabruary the 2nd, will check out your website simplesteps for the updates!
Thanks

Types micro's Gravatar

Types micro
Fri 5th Dec 2008
at 3:26 am

hey, this looks definitely pretty awesome and count me in as someone who’s very interested in your book. i really hope there will be a real paper book as well because reading pdfs on a computer screen can be very tiresome. ;)

Onlinespiele's Gravatar

Onlinespiele
Sun 7th Dec 2008
at 4:14 pm

Awesome! I’ve been buying less and less books in recent times due to being almost completely digital. What I do buy is very carefully chosen now and i can definately say that this will be one of them.

Also my daughters birthday - so I shouldn’t be able forget the date!!

;-)

Stuart Davison's Gravatar

Stuart Davison
Mon 8th Dec 2008
at 10:14 pm

Сильно умно написано

GeorgeWL's Gravatar

GeorgeWL
Tue 9th Dec 2008
at 7:46 am

I’m buying it and I’ve also bookmarked this site (and the lush Grid System site)

I should have come here before - don’t you writefor one of the UK web design magazines? net?

Andy's Gravatar

Andy
Thu 11th Dec 2008
at 11:24 pm

Mark, sounds interesting. There are lots of ways to get into the theory of design and it would be nice to hear your take on it. Looking forward to the book’s release.

Nikki - Logo Design Guru's Gravatar

Nikki - Logo Design Guru
Fri 12th Dec 2008
at 2:56 pm

I cannot wait Mark.  I am certainly going to familiarize myself with your new litereature. A practical approach to web design seems always appealing idea to me!

Piotr's Gravatar

Piotr
Sat 13th Dec 2008
at 10:44 pm

Good luck Mark on your release.
Looking foward to it.

Italian leather sofas's Gravatar

Italian leather sofas
Mon 15th Dec 2008
at 11:02 am

hello
Mark
Good job.
My friends and I will wait it.

onlinegame's Gravatar

onlinegame
Fri 19th Dec 2008
at 11:07 am

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A picture of Mark BoultonI'm a graphic designer from near Cardiff in the UK. I've been a designer for over ten years now and primarily work on the web. I'm still partial to a bit of print every now and then though. I used to work for Agency.com in London as an Art Director before working as a Senior Designer for the BBC in sunny Cardiff. This was all before I took leave of my senses and formed my own design consultancy, Mark Boulton Design Ltd.

I've got a thing about grids and typography and occasionally ramble on about them to anyone who will listen.

If you're after simple, clean and effective web design; let me know.