In January we had a very special visit from a very special Flat Stanley. Flat Stanley started out in 1964 as a children’s book character by author Jeff Brown. He had a triumphant comeback in 1994 when Ontario teacher Dale Hubert had the idea to turn the intrepid Stanley into a hands-on educational experience for grade school students.
Now thousands of students all over the world have their own Flat Stanleys who travel the globe and send back reports on their adventures (thanks to their enthusiastic hosts!) Each family welcomes Stanley into their daily life for a couple of weeks before sending him on to the next location of their choice. All the while, the class back home receives updates and learns about where Stanley has been. Genius! For more information on the Flat Stanley Project check out www.flatstanley.com.
We were thrilled that Stanley arrived just in time to join us on our trip to Miami Beach. We were in town for a wedding so the trip was definitely more pleasure than business! Stanley ate Stone Crabs from the famous Joe’s, walked Ocean Drive, saw the sunrise, and even dressed up in a tux for the black tie wedding.
Once we passed Stanley on to my sister (en route to Mexico) it was time to decide how to send back all of these adventures to the class in Calgary, Alberta. We didn’t have quite enough material for a fully-fledged book so it was deemed a perfect opportunity to test out the Brochure product from Blurb (www.blurb.com/brochure).
My favourite part of book making is designing the cover. The sky’s the limit and I revel in the challenge of striking that subtle balance between simplicity and detail.
This work was my first foray into designing for a young audience so I enjoyed keeping things simple and straight to the point. Much to my delight, Blurb brochures have inside front and back covers in addition to the regular page count so there is even more opportunity for creativity.
In terms of finishes, you can choose between uncoated (the cover will have the same feeling as the interior pages), UV Satin (heavier paper with a satin coating), and UV Gloss (heavier paper with a high gloss coating).
The brochure is a standard US letter size so each page has plenty of room for information (and photos!) The page count can be anywhere between 4 and 48 pages so there is lots of flexability in terms of length.
Volume discounts begin at 10 copies so this opens up many possibilities such as wedding programs, company portfolios, family reunions, and the list goes on!
Now that I’ve been bitten by the brochure bug, this is surely the beginning of a beautiful friendship!