Week 10

For last week:

The FIT team, Val and Matt at least, went to Cumberland on Wednesday to meet with two of the designers they use. I got to tag along as it served as a learning experience of the publishing process. The designers do not work together but are very familiar and friendly with one another. The trip counted as work for both Val and Matt and myself because we dropped off some articles I had edited for a sport finance journal. Business was talked, but it was mostly catching up, exchanging stories, and hanging out over lunch ("When Pigs Fly" in Cumberland has some awesome pulled pork). I didn't see both of the designers' places of work, but the one I saw was pretty neat. Jamie works out of a toy/trinket shop she and her family owns. Behind the counter was one computer hooked into a register and another computer that probably cost more than all of the electronics I own put together: clear and crisp resolution and colors, big screen, and I'm sure more and better programs than I can name. One of those programs is a design program called Quirk which she prefers because she is so familiar with it. The other designer--this was the business that was talked over lunch--used a newer program, though I can't just now think of the name, N-something.

We also got some things from the printer. The catalog is now a "thing" I can hold in my hands. As soon as it came in, Matt found a mistake. That kind of sucks but perfection is rarely achieved. Just about every book on Val's shelf has post-it notes sticking out of the top or side marking something that wasn't caught. For the catalog, the mistake was the addition of an authors name who didn't help write the book, merely part of the foreword. A tiny thing, probably no one will notice save those at FIT and the real authors themselves. But a mistake nonetheless. Other than that, it turned out quite well, I think. We also received hard versions of one of the journals I was working on and the book 100 Trailblazers for which I get credited as "Proofreader."