Facebook has thousands of employees to serve its more than a billion users. That’s a lot of people to get an all-office memo to! Facebook’s Content Strategy team, a division of their design department, recently put the Scout Book format to work in an effort to spread awareness about the company’s content principles.

Melody Quintana, content strategist for Facebook, explained that she was inspired by AIGA Design for Democracy’s Election Design Field Guides. “They were just so fun,” she said.

With the help of Facebook communication designer Tim Belonax, Melody’s team released a pocket-sized guidebook to help content makers at Facebook speak in a unified voice and tone. “Along with the full set of standards, we wanted to give people a taste of what they’re about in a short, easy-to-digest format,” Melody explained.

The books had a dual purpose: not only were they used internally, but they were sent out with recruiting teams to recruiting events around the world. “They’re so easy to give out, they fit in your pocket,” Melody said. The books were a hit at a recent recruiting event in London.

Squarespace is kind of like Scout Books.

Sure, they help you make websites, and we help you make books, but when you think about it, we’re both in the business of flexible, simple formats with infinite potential for customization. (Woohoo!) We feel a kinship with Squarespace’s approach to making, and were thrilled when they made custom Scout Books.

Squarespace uses their Scout Books as gifts at live events. They partner with many tech and design events, and note-taking tools are always appreciated by attendees. As Jessica Kausen from Squarespace explained, “It’s a handy item they can carry in their pockets at all times, and a great way to get our brand into someone’s hands.”

Copyright © 2013 Gensler

Gensler is a global design firm founded in San Francisco in 1965. Their experience and diversity lead to creative solutions that connect with people, helping them to express who they are and who they want to be.

Copyright © 2013 Gensler

Their San Francisco office created these collectible Scout Books as a resource for small start-up and emerging tech companies as they begin their journey looking for workspace.

Copyright © 2013 Gensler

The books provide helpful information including the ABC’s of a commerical lease, tips for a green healthy workspace, and helpful hints for workplace design. The original infographics are embedded with humor, which makes taking that next step fun and easy to understand.

Copyright © 2013 Gensler

Check out more photos of these amazing books on the Scout Books Flickr!

This collaboration between Scout Books and Future Tense Books has been a long time coming! We have known FTB editor Kevin Sampsell for many years, and have always wanted to work together. The time has come, and we couldn’t be more excited.

The Future Tense Scout Books series features three unique, never-published works by three Future Tense authors: Melody Owen‘s Dream Journals (When I Was Nineteen I Was an Old Man), Aaron Gilbreath‘s A Secondary Landscape, and Sommer Browning‘s The Presidents and Other Jokes.

“We’re hoping to make this a regular series and to do three books a year this way,” Kevin said. “There are no shortage of writers I’d love to work with in this format, and the writers I’ve spoken to are excited about the idea of having these sweet little books out in the world.” This project was made possible by Kevin Sampsell, his co-editor and designer at Future Tense Bryan Coffelt, and our awesome team at Scout Books.

To celebrate the release of these new titles, we’re having a party this weekend! On Saturday, April 13, join us at the IPRC at 7pm for snacks, drinks, books and short readings from Aaron and Melody. (We might even beam Sommer in from Denver, we’ll see!)

Kevin took the time to explain each of the titles and offered some back-story on the authors.

Melody Owen: Dream Journals (When I Was Nineteen I Was an Old Man)
“I think [Melody Owen's] art is wonderfully strange and a little bit uncomfortable… I was excited when she showed me a bunch of her actual dream journals. We used a simple courier-type font for this book because it almost (in a very odd, funny way) reads like a report. Like a newspaper or a captain’s log from an alternate universe.” Check out a recent interview with Melody here. 

Aaron Gilbreath: A Secondary Landscape
“I feel really lucky and happy to give [Aaron] his first book. I’m sure it will be the first of many. A Secondary Landscape is a really fun essay about travel, young ideas of shamanism, and drug experimenting.” Read a review of Aaron’s title here.

Sommer Browning: The Presidents and Other Jokes
“Summer Browning is very funny and smart and has a vast knowledge of presidents throughout history, especially funny factoids about them and/or made up stuff. Her book has jokes about all forty-six presidents as well as other stuff about the Internet and Abercrombie & Fitch. Sommer just had a baby girl and I bet the corners of these books get chewed on all the time at her house. The cover is made of really chewable chipboard paper.” Sommer’s Twitter has lots of funny stuff to read.

All three titles are available online in the Future Tense store, and will soon be available at bookstores and other retail locations. Or, come to our party and pick up your copy in person!

Randal Ford is an Austin-based photographer with an extensive portfolio of kids, narratives, animals, portraits and some truly beautiful landscapes. He recently created a promotional mailer, and included Scout Books. He described the project so well on his blog, we’ll just let him tell the story.

“I’m excited to share my most recent promo, which hits mailboxes this week. With the help of The Butler Bros here in Austin, we created more than just a traditional promotional piece. We wanted to send out something useful and classic.  So we created a Scout Book themed as a photography field journal.

In order to increase usability we included a custom pencil and designed a band to connect the pencil with the journal. We then created 4 postcards from my series for LL Bean’s 100th year anniversary. The postcards, which are perforated together, are designed to be usable.

We used a Neenah classic linen stock to give the postcards a textured and warm look. The Butler Bros concepted each vintage postcard based on Maine’s beautiful Acadia National Park, which is where the images were shot. To round out the presentation we had a custom red tape made inspired by the traditional washi tape used in mailings in the past. The tape was applied to a Kraft stay-flat mailer to protect the entire kit.

This was a great collaboration.  I’m especially grateful to The Butler Bros who’ve been mentors & friends to me over the past 10 years and agreed to take on this project.  Also, sending out a huge thanks to Mike Plouf at Blanks Printing and the folks at Scoutbooks.com”

We’re so pleased to work with YOU, Randal! Keep up the good work. Big thanks to Randal Ford for sharing his story and his exquisite photos of the project.

The Gap is a clothing retailer who has been making moves in American fashion since 1969. Scout Books has had the pleasure of working with the Gap before, when they partnered with OMFGCO to print Scout Books for a concept shop in their Glendale, California location.

Those blue-on-chipboard pocket notebooks for the Glendale shop spawned a whole series of little notebooks for other Gap retail locations. Each one features cover artwork specific to the store’s location.

We can’t wait for more exciting projects from the Gap’s creative team!

Urban Cricket is a homegrown affair. Started by roommates Gloria and Audrey in their small New York City apartment, the t-shirt and tote company has flourished since beginning in 2009.

They pay careful attention to quality — “if we won’t wear it, we won’t make it!” — and recently completed a t-shirt collaboration with Saks Fifth Avenue. They created these Scout Books to hand out at trade fairs and also plan to add them to their shop.

Check out their online shop and grab your own typewriter t-shirt or disco-ball sweatshirt!

The Retail Coach is a retail recruiting and development firm dedicated to improving quality of life through the expansion of retailers and restaurants. They help their clients (economic development organizations, municipalities and chambers of commerce) boost the experience for residents.

As part of their marketing effort, they recently participated in the International Council of Shopping Center’s conference in Las Vegas. At the gathering of retailers, developers and city representatives, they were able to share their approach to retail development with their client base in a handy pocket-sized how-to called 12 Ways to Expand Your Sales Tax Base.

Suzanne Brooks, Client Services Director for The Retail Coach said, “The Scout Books are truly supporting our company’s efforts to firmly establish our presence on a national level.” Awesome!

The Southern Foodways Alliance Symposium is an annual gathering for aficionados of American Southern cuisine. As part of the Center for the Study of Southern Culture at the University of Mississippi in Oxford, the SFA generates dialogue about barbecue, biscuits and gravy, and hot sauce (to name a few).

Their 2012 Symposium drew participants from all walks of food life, and Mary Beth Lasseter from SFA explained how the Scout Books served its pocket-sized purpose: “At previous symposia, we handed each participant a photocopied packed of information. The full pages were clunky and by weekend’s end, were always crumpled, torn or missing. The Scout Books solved this problem.”

The SFA Symposium packed a lot into the little books: event schedules, speaker bios, sponsor listings, a welcome letter, local directions, and pages for participants to take notes in the back. Lasseter said, “The books were a hit.”

(See more of the Symposium in the photographs in this Flickr set.)

We just launched a shiny new Wholesale Shop with case packs of our Notebook and Book lines for retail resale. We can’t wait to get Scout Books into a store near you!

Are you a retailer? Check it out and sign up for our wholesale-only newsletter here, where we’ll announce new products and promotions. We’re working on some really stunning display systems and signage too, which we can’t wait to show off.

Let us know if you have any favorite shops you’d like to carry Scout Books; we’d love to hear from you via Twitter or E-mail! As always, thanks a bunch.