my promos, and the step-by-step process behind them.

if you follow me on twitter or facebook, you know i've been working on promos for a long time. the concept was to highlight for the recipient that i am an artist as well as a designer, and that my strength is putting ideas down on paper (quite literally). so i decided to make a "sketchbook" of sorts that featured my work, a personalized note and a catalog of work shown. the remaining blank pages are a gift to the recipient to sketch their own ideas.

i found out that i could easily make these sketchbooks myself. yep, glue and all. how cool is that?!

i began by laying out all my pages on the table. every promo contained different pages and a different personalized note. so i needed to assemble them one by one.

after compiling the pages for each book, i put them together with a cut chipboard backing and a few pieces of cardstock on the front. this was because i was clamping the books together for gluing, and i wanted to make sure that there were no imprint marks from the binder clips on the paper. i took a synthetic paintbrush and used it to brush on quick-drying paper glue. finally, i added a third clip in the center and waited for each book to dry. after dry, i would take off the cardstock from the front (often with the help of an exacto to make the process neater) and add another thin layer of glue. then i would let those dry.

finally, i took another piece of paper to make the cover. i measured the width of the dried sketchbooks, and used that to determine how long the cover should be to wrap around the top to the back for gluing. i also added in scoring marks so that i could score the covers to fold easier. before gluing, i stamped each cover with my logo in white.

finally, i added the covers and glued them much the same way as i glued the rest of the book, adding cardstock onto the front and back of each book and clamping them down.

the finished sketchbooks had a note on the front for the recipient, hand written, tied to the books alongside a golf pencil.

this was a very fun promo to put together. i hope my recipients loved it as much as i did.