Blogging to write a book
Published by Andreas Johannsen August 5th, 2006 in MetaI’ve been wanting to write a book about web design manuals for years. Since November 2002 according to my first notes. This week I red Seth Godin’s posting Advice for authors and Shel Israel’s Are you using a blog to promote your book?. Reading those postings kicked me to set up this blog so that I can get the book written finally.
So, how do I plan to use the blog in the writing process? I hope to get into discussions designers, project managers, marketing people and others involved in designing web sites from both the client’s and the producer’s side. I’ve been blogging for several years and I’ve always been overwhelmed by how much I learn when the comment field is open.
Hej Andreas,
Spændende emne til en bog. glæder mig til at følge frem- og tilbageskridt på bloggen. Jeg vil naturligvis bidrage hvor jeg kan.
// Mads
Hi Mads. Thanks for the encouragement. I’m looking forward to your input here.
A very good web style guide is:
http://www.webstyleguide.com/
Available online and in print.
Thanks and I agree, David. It’s added to the links on the front page.
godspeed with the book. sounds promising.
my only thought. what’s the role of manuals in an era where the focus is hackability, adaptability, decentralization, end-user design, people’s own voices?
not that i don’t think it’s necessary - i luuuve great design manuals - just that their form might change somewhat in this context - compared to the original fixed physical design world the manuals grew out of…
Thanks, Thomas - and a very good question indeed. I don’t have the final answer but I’ve often met the frustration in the central marketing department in organisations over this development. A tentative answer would be that the manual *must* explain the reasons (or principles) behind specific guidelines because new media, new hacks, new channels, new APIs all make it difficult to apply guidelines made specific for corporate web sites. Explaining reasons behind guidelines will make it possible to create new blogs, services, sites etc on a decentral level that can still work visually as part of the common corporate whole. Does it make sense?
I guess it makes sense short term.
But i think the tides are turning tremendously from the centralization/monoculture that the CMS unintentedly turned into (where every page looks the same because people don’t invest in additional design, etc.)
Blogs, etc. can be seen as a massive revolt towards this, from portals towards small intimate spaces both in scope and in visual experience. But i guess it then just becomes an issue of what global elements still should be there.
Who knows - it’s perhaps the ending chapter reflecting on what’s next.
But good point on the philosophy angle - that the manuals might head more towards that - perhaps becoming more abstract and not so concrete.