PROFESSIONALLY PRINTED PORTFOLIO

I mentioned in my last post that I was working on a few big projects. I don't mean big as in they take up a lot of space, but big as in they take up a lot of my time, and if I'm perfectly honest, a lot more of my sanity. None more so than this most recent project (can I still call it "recent" if its taken 6 months to make?). I present to you ...

**DUN-DUN-DUN-DUUUUUUU** (that was supposed to sound like a horn ... go with me on this, people)

A professionally bound representation of my life's work!! I mean, no big. It's just everything that I've toiled over for the past 4 YEARS. My blood, sweat, and tears. Quite literally. Grad school is no joke, friends.

But look! Marvel at the clean white cover with the beautiful jewel toned geometry (look slightly familiar?)! Gasp at the print quality of the hairline diagrams! Pour over the nearly 50 pages of pure graphic gratification! And the way the cover image wraps the edges! I should sit down.

Sigh ...



So this took forever. I mean it. I've been working on the page layout, the project order, the text, the color scheme, the font choices, the graphic scheme ... for about half of a year now. And this is because I'm crazy. But if you want to represent your work and get it professionally bound, you don't have to spend half a year or pull out half your hair. There are about a million (gross exaggeration) companies who will now print even single runs of your work, ship it to you, and even sell it for you! The company I used was Blurb, but there's Lulu (no, not the see-through yoga pants one), Shutterfly, and a whole lot more (but to be honest I wasn't too thrilled with their user interface, so I'm not going to mention them here).

And it's not just portfolios that you can print. You can print photo books, cookbooks, comics, scrapbooks ... you can even publish e-books now! All of the sites listed offer templates with drag and drop options, and customizable styles. Blurb even offers Adobe inDesign templates to make custom designs easier.

My sister (who runs a fabulous food blog ... YUM) made me a custom cook book with recipes gathered from our family for my birthday. I mean, how freaking thoughtful is that??

I'm not trying to sell anything here. I'm just excited that I don't have to settle for a crappy spiral-bound book anymore. Ain't life grand??

As always, I'd love to hear what you think. I've also added a "follow by email" feature in the top right!