[HN Gopher] Show HN: A self-published art book about Google's fi...
___________________________________________________________________
Show HN: A self-published art book about Google's first 25 years
This took me 3 years to finish. (It is 100% self-published, not
endorsed by Google.) So... I wrote a book. It's a different book
with a unique approach. It's not a novel or a technical book. It's
a biography, a company's biography. My hope is that it serves two
purposes: to inspire founders and to captivate interior designers.
It all started three years ago. My wife and I were discussing
interior design for our living room and she brought up what
beautiful coffee table books should we have. After looking at her
favorites I realized there's nothing like this for tech startups.
Digital products are intangible, how cool would it be to make them
tangible and a beautiful art/decor book for your home office or
living room? This idea of consolidating my particular interests
with my wife's decorative goals got stuck in the back of my head
for a while. I searched and searched. I could only find these kinds
of books related to design, architecture, fashion, or travel.
Nothing about tech startups. The next logical step for me was to do
it myself... And oh... what a "mistake" it was. This whole project
was done during nights and weekends - the first half while working
on my startup and the last half while helping create Webflow Labs.
You have no idea how many times I "quit" the project. In the end,
perseverance and discipline were key to making it happen. During
my founder journey, I collected several notes about successful (and
unsuccessful) tech startups to help me learn from them. I decided
to write about Google's fascinating story: a true generational
company and one of the most valuable companies in the world. It's
with great pleasure and satisfaction that I'm introducing you to
"Google - First 25 Years". A book celebrating the minds behind the
tech giant's incredible journey from Stanford to global dominance.
I have absolutely no idea if this book's format and concept make
sense or if it has an audience willing to invest ($169). Here are
some of the unique features: # Silk hardcover # Limited edition
# Handpainted edges # More than 30 handmade illustrations I'm
producing only 1,000 copies. If the book concept seems interesting
enough, leave a comment, I'd love to know your thoughts! Either
way, this project was a super fun ride where being outside my
comfort zone was the best way to learn storytelling, graphic
design, and product manufacturing. At least, I hope this inspires
you to go back to your side projects and finish them!
Author : johndamaia
Score : 29 points
Date : 2024-04-17 17:09 UTC (5 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (www.damaia.com)
(TXT) w3m dump (www.damaia.com)
| xnx wrote:
| Nice job! I'm always surprised how relatively little is findably
| recorded about Google's history. It's one of the most important
| and influential companies of the past hundred years. I love to
| read all the different bits of insider info and company lore that
| I can. I think I have some old Apache log files that still
| contain lines with the "BackRub" user agent.
| johndamaia wrote:
| Thank you so much! Yes, it's fascinating to me how a massive
| and generational company like Google starts as a "side
| project".
| roynasser wrote:
| Nice! Ordered mine ;)
| johndamaia wrote:
| Thank you so much Roy! Can't wait to hear your thoughts about
| it :)
| topherjaynes wrote:
| Really cool, but I want the visual history of the internal meme
| generator!
| johndamaia wrote:
| Hahahah that would be fun to work on next!
| donalhunt wrote:
| https://knowyourmeme.com/memes/shut-up-and-take-my-money
| elwell wrote:
| Sigh... all my McMillen disappeared on Jan 10th.
| bap wrote:
| Marques Brownlee recently published a video about the Humane AI
| Pin (device) [1] and I noticed this book in some of the device
| shots, found it curious and had (incorrectly it seems) assumed it
| was some kind of internal Google swag.
|
| Well played Mr. da Maia :)
|
| 1 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TitZV6k8zfA&t=867s
| johndamaia wrote:
| Yes! Good catch, it also shows very clearly in minute 3:51 [0].
| Thank you so much for your support!
|
| [0] - https://youtu.be/TitZV6k8zfA?si=1BmlLAP-5fCq0yW2&t=231
| subidit wrote:
| I remember watching it on YouTube. Really liked the book design.
| How expensive/difficult is it to have each page in different
| colour? Tell me more about the page quality. Also it looked like
| "product sans" at first glance, if yes then how is it licensed?
| Why didn't you choose flat binding?
|
| Anyway congratulations on the book release. It's really a
| beautiful creation and worthy of being an art piece.
| johndamaia wrote:
| Thank you so much! Love your questions.
|
| > How expensive/difficult is it to have each page in different
| colour? The production was very specific to our design needs.
| For this edition, each book cost me more than $65 to produce.
|
| > it looked like "product sans" at first glance We have
| licensed all our fonts which are: ABC White, Affairs and IBM
| Plex Mono.
|
| > Tell me more about the page quality The paper is Fedrigoni
| Arena Rough Extra White
|
| > Why didn't you choose flat binding? This question is great!
| We wanted to have that characteristic curve of opened books. It
| was very much a thoughtful decision.
| flipez wrote:
| Already sold out in the EU :(
| johndamaia wrote:
| Yea... sorry about it :/
| theolivenbaum wrote:
| Sold out in the EU already? Any ideas when it's going to be
| available again?
| johndamaia wrote:
| Let's see how it goes in the US. If everything goes as
| expected, I'll maybe publish a second edition after the Summer
| :)
| raybb wrote:
| Does this thing have an ISBN? I can't find it on the site.
___________________________________________________________________
(page generated 2024-04-17 23:01 UTC)