The making of By Design: Why There Are No Locks on the Bathroom Doors in the Hotel Louis XIV and Other Object Lessons by Ralph Caplan

Studying the original edition.

Thinking where to place the blue inserts.

We can’t use some of the pictures in the original edition due to copyright reasons. Considering whether we can make our own to replace them.

Purchasing ingredients for a burger that we need to photograph.

Spending a huge amount of time to find illustrations (probably more than we spent on typesetting the entire book). Some of the pictures we make ourselves, others we purchase. Marking the results in a check list.

Sending a long list of replacement photographs to the art director.

Coming up with an idea for the binding. Using the Eames chair as a source of inspiration.

Considering the dust jacket design.

Taking pictures.

The jacket starts to look like many others and falls out of the art director’s favor. The search continues.

Photoshopping the author’s photo. Before:

And after::

Uploading the files to the print shop’s server.