Thursday, May 24, 2012

Philip Schmidt — Maker Faire Was Fantastic!

Maker Faire* was fantastic! Definitely a good fit for PlyDesign.

Attached are some shots of the space. The aesthetic at the Faire is very casual and workshoppy (all in a good way), so having the BLADs** from the book worked well; people just stepped right in to check out the stuff. The lamp seemed to get the most attention (possibly from the simple fact that it lit up), and Henry Boyle (contributing designer to PlyDesign) brought in several pieces that filled out the space nicely.

Philip Schmidt, PlyDesign author, manning the booth at Maker Faire

The banner and portfolio [put together by Storey’s marketing design team] were absolutely key. The banner legitimized the entire booth. And people were really drawn to the portfolio. Most of those who stopped to glance at it took the time to flip through the whole thing.

Booth visitors were really drawn to the portfolio.

In addition to handing out BLADs for PlyDesign, Phil and Henry also
promoted themselves with a very cool business card display.

Matt Wolpe (contributing designer to PlyDesign) and Kevin McElroy (coauthor with Matt Wolpe to Storey’s upcoming book, Reinventing the Chicken Coop) stopped in for a while, and we talked about the Faire's being a good idea for their book. In fact, there’s a whole building devoted to self-sufficiency and urban farming stuff, called “Homegrown Village.”

All told, five of the book’s contributors stopped in during the Faire. Henry Boyle definitely gets the gold star — he was set up before I even got there. He spent a lot of time at the booth on both days and was critical for discussing techie stuff with visitors. A huge help overall.

Henry Boyle, PlyDesign contributing designer, gets a gold star
for his dedication to the
PlyDesign booth at Maker Faire.

Personally, it was a lot of fun for me. A great first experience with live book promotion.

— Philip Schmit, author of PlyDesign

*Bay Area Maker Faire was held at the San Mateo County Event Center, San Mateo, California. Maker Faire is an all-ages gathering of tech enthusiasts, crafters, educators, tinkerers, hobbyists, engineers, science clubs, authors, artists, students, and commercial exhibitors. Check out the Bay Area Maker Faire site to find out more about the event and for information about upcoming Maker Faires around the country.

**Book layout and design: a printed marketing piece put together by Storey’s marketing design department to show a sampling of the book's content.

1 comment:

Bylwrks said...

Phil...wow what does it take to get attention for these
blogs? Still grateful for everything...working on a new project to be Crowd-funded very soon. I'll email you..

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