Cementum

Concrete Operational: The Designs

Richard Galbraith — Sun, 08 Nov 2009 15:08:38 +0000

The design process for a novel is difficult enough, spending (literally) dozens of hours unearthing a concept that could work across not only the novel, but the Art Book and Album as well pushed my designer, Mike Cranston, very nearly into a delusional state.

I’m going to do a very big video session on how Mike and I finally landed on what is below, including everything from fonts through to ideas based around sacred geometry and the internal theories of the novel. But, for the mean time, I want to merely present the designs and hear what you think. The reasons will come later.

The images should link through to the high res versions on Flickr, but to skip straight there, click here.

Concrete Operational - The Novel - Front

Concrete Operational - The Novel - Back

Concrete Operational - The Art Book - Front

Concrete Opertional - The Art Book - Back

Concrete Operational - The Album - Front

Concrete Operatinoal - The Album - Back

Concrete Operational - The Album - Inlay

Elkay Properties & Bad Business

Richard Galbraith — Mon, 02 Nov 2009 17:25:22 +0000

Right, this is a short and to the point blog post, it’s slightly off topic, granted, but I’ve had enough, as undoubtedly the vast majority of others who read this blog have, with fucking estate agents.

The only reason I can see for their existence is to make other people’s lives unhappy. From my experience in living in rented accommodation, for the last 8 years, I have never, not once, found a helpful estate agent.

I have lived, doing a quick finger count, in approximately 10 different rented apartments, flats and houses in the last 8 years, which has actually meant 8 different estate agents and a couple of private lets. Never once have I been treated with any form of respect, or politeness or even with a smile, by the estate agents, every single time the swine have tried to fuck me over in some capacity and having recently moved again, and having been treated with contempt once again, I’m blogging about it.

Not because I think blogging about Elkay Properties, in Old Street, London, that operate on a lot of lettings around the Hoxton area, will get back the £30 I was ripped off for an admin fee through no fault of my own, but because I hope, it’ll be a little lesson in social media and the power of word of mouth.

You see, as has probably become apparent in a few of my previous blog posts, I am a social media professional by day. This means I help everyone from brands to film studios engage with people, the sorts of people that talk a lot online, have opinions and like to voice them opinions through this great medium of social media.

I help them connect because they ask, because they are beginning to understand that if I, or anyone else who is miffed or generally pissed off about a product, or film, or brand, or customer service issue, can now publish content online, at zero cost, which ultimately, skipping out a few points, can affect the purchase decisions of others and cause big change. There are a lot of other reasons, but that’s one of the biggies.

Now, back to Elkay, essentially, I asked a number of times (count 4) what my deposit was on my new flat, they failed to let me know, over and over again, which resulted in me, their customer, having to fork out a £30 admin fee on my move in day, or ‘you don’t get your keys’. No, 'Sorry, our mistake, we'll sort it out, here, enjoy your move,' no, just a simple 'pay the fee, or you don't get your keys'.

Thanks a fucking bunch Elkay, your fuck-up cost me money and you made me feel like a cunt, now when people search your company name in Google, this blog post will come up, saying ‘ELKAY PROPERTIES ARE A BUNCH OF INCOMPITENT FUCK HOLES’.

Right, rant over, I will post on the positive side of social media, how it can help your creativity, how it can help raise awareness of what you’re doing, get you feedback and open doors sometime soon, I just needed to take 15 minutes to get that off my chest.

Here's some bunnies to help you calm down, but before you get too calm, rant about more estate agents in the comments section.

Starred Inspiration #5

Richard Galbraith — Tue, 29 Sep 2009 11:15:03 +0000

I’m rampant at the moment, I’ve got 22 musicians, 5 artists, one graphics designer, an aloof venue manager, recording studio guy, proofing editors, journalists, boxing companies, friends, family and myself all biding for attention as the process of organising Operation Concrete finally comes together.

It’s maddening, but the most important thing is that it’s all actually happening, and within two months, I’ll have curated an art exhibition, put on what is essentially a mini-festival, launched my first novel, released a CD and published an Art book. Oh, and I’ve started setting up own publishing house, called Rawstone Media Industries, which will produce three or four or as many as I can manage, collaborative media projects similar to Operation Concrete, a year. Essentially supporting independent publishing of niche, creative, and burgeoning artists, musicians and writers.

So, it’s mental, but awesome, I’ve just moved into a great new flat in Shoreditch, which is going to be really conducive to my creativity, and I plan on picking up my camera again soon and getting some snaps, as I really enjoyed it when I had the time previously. I really, really need to start video blogging, which I think I’ve mentioned before, and I’ve been putting off because I hate being in front of the camera, but I plan on doing one a week for the next ten weeks, leading up to, during and post the launch and things, so keep an eye out for that.

And now, for some inspirational things from my last seven days of browsing. I created a mood board for my novel front cover designer to take ideas from, you can find that here.

Operation Concrete & £5,000 Arts Council Funding

Richard Galbraith — Sun, 06 Sep 2009 20:11:29 +0000

So, they did it, they finally confirmed that Operation Concrete has won arts council funding and now I'm taking possibly the biggest leap in my life. Approximately £5,000 to explore emotions, creativity, and a collaboration between the written word, art and music, put on an exhibition and release a series of products.

I plan on telling everyone everything that I’ve done so far and what I’m doing as I go along to ensure that people can benefit from how I did it and how eventually, if all goes to plan, independently released and published my first novel. Then there’s the other side as well, about how, fingers crossed, I manage to create a little bit of buzz about it online, enough to introduce a few people to the novel, CD and art book that are going to be release. This will be in the form of a video blog over at the project’s site, www.operationconcrete.com, which, I have been putting off for a terribly long time because I’m not particularly fond of filming myself. My voice is weirdly out of sync with my mouth a lot of the time, not sure how to solve this, but we’ll see how it all goes.

Now, where am I? Well, all the big things are falling into place, there’re lots of correspondence and lots of confirming things. But I plan on doing a series of posts that will help people, who, like me, had no idea how to win arts council funding, how to bring together artists, musicians and organise exhibitions and all that other jazz.

I’m currently making heavy revisions to the novel, turning it from an introspective head fuck of internal monologues and quarrels about everything from fate to love, into something people actually want to read. Not to say that it was totally unreadable to start, only that I was the novel that I wanted to write, and not necessarily the novel that people would want to buy.

I’ve come to realise there’s actually quite a difference, so I expect that I’ll tackle that subject on here, and keep the blog on theme, about creativity.

I’ve also undertaken another large idea, I’ll post about that when everything comes together, and is 100% done, rather than just in a selection of moleskin pages in note from.

Suffice to say however, everything is going to get more difficult and more fun from this point in. Sleep is for sleepy people and the hard I work the luckier I get. The future is going to bear some interesting travels; I’ll enjoy sharing the ride with anyone who cares to listen.

Starred Inspiration #4

Richard Galbraith — Sun, 23 Aug 2009 15:26:58 +0000

Lots going on, lots to implement and think about, lots to scratch at and tickle, lots to render down and understand, just lots of things. Last week should have been more eventful than it was, but certain messages that were meant to be delivered weren't and thus a lot of anxiety was pointless, wasted adrenaline and too much uneeded running.

So, looks like next week will be the week, I'll find everything I need to know, be able to announce a couple of very awesome things, then figure out some proper content for here rather than these starred inpsiration posts, which, whilst I enjoy doing them and creating a bit of a digital thought board, don't really help me achieve what i wanted to do with this blog when I renamed it 'Cementum - The Creative'. Right, some aceness is below, check it, be creative.

let yourself feel. from Esteban Diácono on Vimeo.

Starred Inspiration #3

Richard Galbraith — Fri, 24 Jul 2009 16:38:07 +0000

So, I’ve been strapped to my desk for the last three weeks now, I’ve revised / rewritten 35,000 words, listened to a lot of Muse, and generally have come up with a very well rendered restructuring of the novel, and missed out on a lot of drinks with friends.

The cathartic process of releasing all my thoughts and ideas I had first time round is happening again and I am in one hand, more relaxed than I’ve ever been, and then on the other hand, extremely excited and vitriolic about the project and the ideas in the novel.

So, I’ve almost got the ‘first section’ done, seven chapters, it’ll come together on about 36k words, I think, maybe a bit less, depends on how much editing I do, but until that is done, there’s little time for anything else, I’m sneaking a quick blog post in at work right now. Friday night and I’m heading to my local haunt for three hours of writing before the lady turns up. Lots more content and less promises coming soon. In the mean time, things that have helped inspire me in recent days are below.

Starred Inspiration #2

Richard Galbraith — Thu, 02 Jul 2009 14:26:13 +0000

Normal posts about general creativity and exploring the revisions and re-writes I'm currently doing to Concrete Operational should resume here shortly, in the mean time here's some things that I have collected using my Google reader over the last seven days. It's like my board for digital clippings, it's what I will often refer to for inspiration.

Dates: 25/06/09 - 02/07/09

Thom Puckey
Supreme MX Sunglasses
Buried machines, ice tunnels, stratigraphic euphoria
A Writer Asks
Build an Insanely Great Web Service
Horizon
Blast #3
Shine Flashlight
Balcon II
The greatest propaganda journal of the USSR
Photo
Jaws 1
The purpose of a book cover

All is safe for work.

Starred Inspiration #1

Richard Galbraith — Thu, 18 Jun 2009 08:49:45 +0000

Okay, a few things. This blog isn’t dead, I’ve just been very busy both with the day job and the project. I’ve been writing and making a lot of revisions to the novel with one hand, taking care of admin and packaging solutions and graphics design ideas and all sorts of stuff with the other. This has left me little time to blog in my evenings, and as a consequence I’ve let myself drop off.

Now, I didn’t want this blog to become a set of links, but in the mean time, before I start video blogging regularly about the project, I will be doing just that, and hopefully some other stuff in between. Basically, I’m going to be doing these 'Starred Inspiration,’ posts whenever I get the chance and in which, I will post a selection of links to things I like and have made me think during the previous week or two weeks or few days or whatever. As the theme of this blog is now the very board, 'Creativity' hopefully some of what I'll be spurging here will be of some use to the readers I get and anyone else who comes along.

Fortunately I have a most excellent job that allows me to be online all day, during the course of which I peek at my RSS feed and ‘star’ certain items in my Google reader to look over whenever I need inspiration. These are some of the things that inspire me and make me think and may give you ideas an inspiration as well.

Concrete Operational - CreateSpace Book Review

Richard Galbraith — Tue, 28 Apr 2009 20:26:00 +0000

So, it's been a few weeks coming, but I finally produced and rendered my novel and pushed it through the Amazon CreateSpace self publishing and print on demand system, and I must say, it has been the best experience so far. Right off the bat, this one is easily the most professional product, and the whole service is definitely for producing a more professional novel and for more the more advanced customer. For instance, people who know how to design and render to a good degree will definitely prefer this service.

So, as is vitally important with these services, it's ease of use. Now on this front, CreateSpace has both good and bad points. Firstly, you do the entire design by yourself, to specific measurements that, in some instances, they can provide you as a template PDF for import into Photoshop or Indesign. I say some instances, because it's not all. I for instance, chose the difficult route, as always, and opted for a 'Special print size' which meant they could not provide a pre-built template for me. But no problem, after I'd worked out the spine thickness with the information they provide on paper and ink thickness, I was ready to rock.

Basically, if you like design, this one is perfect, because, unlike Lulu, and Blurb, you can fully render your idea in your piece of design software, export as PDF, and you get exaclty what you design. Literally, exactly what you give them. This is because they provide you with very clear bleed and cut space parameters. So, whatever you design, you get, and the print quality is great. As you can see in the image below, I've got big solid red and yellow sections, and the ink distribution and quality is far superior to that of Lulu.

Now, the inside. This is the same, they require a PDF with embedded fonts, and you get exactly what you give them, which is great. This time around I didn't spend ages on the design and typography of the inside, but for the final product you can guaruntee I'm going to go to town on in and I'll get exactly what I give them.

Couple of other things, the front cover is still laminate which means it's a bit of a finger print magnet, but seems at the moment better quality than both Lulu and Blurb. I've been carrying it in my side satchel for a week or so now as I do to test out duribility and it's standing up to a good beating. The page paper quality is also better than Lulu, although about on par with that of Blurb.

Finally, I think the best thing about Createspace, and the reason why I'm going to be using it, is the quality of service you're getting alround. For starters, you get listed on Amazon instantly and receive all the benefits that that brings. Secondly, you get a barcode and ISBN number without paying any extra costs. Thirdly, the prices for customers are the most competitive out of the three I've tried. Fourth, you get optional 'premium' services to bring down the cost dramatically for bulk orders. Fifth, you get an option for your own E-Store, and the option to have the novel downloadable for the Kindle. So it's all there really. Oh and finally, I had a few questions when it came to bulk ordering and postal costs etc, I sent questions and got answers, like they guaruntee, within 24 hours and they were great. I even emailed to say how impressed I was with the responses and got another email back saying 'Anytime!' which was nice.

So, all in all, I'm going to go with CreateSpace over Lulu, although the reduced rates on bulk orders for Lulu are attractive, all the other services, the paper quality and sizes as well as stability and professionalism that Amazon brings tip the scales for me. Also, after paying $40, for the premium service, you get greatly reduced costs which are highly competative with any other service out there anyway.

I'm going to do a comparison post of all three services with a bit of a table and stuff as well, just for easy reference by people in the future. Hope this was helpful.

In regards to the blog as well, I'm going to get back into the habit of one post per week now. Loads to update on regarding the self publishing project as a whole, and I want to get back involved with the online writing community at large.

Concrete Operational - Lulu Book Review

Richard Galbraith — Mon, 06 Apr 2009 08:52:18 +0000

So, whilst I've been working on the project, the revisions to the novel itself and doing my regular job, I've been trying to test out the the different print on demand services that are available on the internet. As this whole thing is an experiment in P.O.D and how good you can get the final product, branding and distribution, I need to give the big three a go. I've tried Blurb, and whilst their software was a bit of a pain, the service was great and the end product was of high quality. The major downfall of Blurb is that they cannot give you and ISBN or any online retailer distribution with their service, which is a bit of a pain, once they've got that sorted, I'll look at their service again.

Now on to Lulu, the big one. Really, at the moment Lulu is the middle ground market leader when it comes to P.O.D. They're getting most of the hype, and a lot of customers. Personally, I think their distribution networks are set, they've got reasonable prices and so I just needed to see their product. I have to say for blogger disclosure that Lulu have principally Lulu have agreed to give me reduced rates on Operation Concrete, however, for this test product, I did pay full price as anyone would normally.

Okay, so their range of books is pretty comprehensive, but for my liking too big. Blurb have a really good 4.75" by 7.75" size, which I thought was a great size for paperback novel. Now, Lulu on the other hand, has a great range, but the smallest, biggest one they've got is actually too big for my liking. So I went with their smallest, 'Pocket size' which is 4.25" x 7" so not a massive drop really.

Their software, this was a better experience for the text side of things by far. All your editing is done in whatever your wordprocessing programme is, converted to PDF and uploaded. This proved all round to be a much more pleasent way of doing things. Their cover design process however was a pain. Maybe it was just me, but I couldn't find the specifications for their bleed measurements. They had resolution of image, but bleed was none existant, which meant you'd have to create an image, upload it, see if it fit in the bleed margins, if it didnt, edit it with guess work and re-upload. This was a pain in the arse truth be told, but I got around it eventually.

So here's the novel.

Operation Concrete - From lulu.com

It looks pretty good actually. The paper quality is slightly less than that of Blurb, but the pricing is also cheaper. Overall I'm pretty happy with the product and I'm almost 100% sure I'm going to go with these guys to do the project with. However, the cover is laminated, which makes it prone to finger prints and gives it a slightly cheap look.

The final P.O.D service that needs trying is Create Space by Amazon. Those guys seem like the most pro-service you can use, but we'll see how easy they are and how good the product is soon hopefully.

In other exciting news, I did a reading as part of Oxford Fringe festival's 'new voices' talk, and I pulled a bigger crowd than Jeffery Archer, how awesome is that?