Vanessa Del Fabbro is one of our rock'nest clients who also is a totally cool author.  Recently she threw a copy of her book The Road to Home my way and I must say it is awesome! 

The story is about two South African women that are vastly different in many ways.  Both are thrusted into each others lives and create a remarkable friendship amidst racial adversity and a uniquely different set of cultures in South Africa.  

Vanessa has a smooth way of storytelling that makes this book come to life.  Her storytelling and attention to detail remind me of other favorite authors like Bailey White and Sue Grafton.   Vanessa has put down a beautiful story that is thrilling, colorful and emotional.  It is definitely a must read!

Bravo Vanessa, and thanks for being here for us all!

Posted by danny at 07:57 AM | Permalink

 One of my buddies in the photography industry mentioned this book to me a while back and I recently just finished reading it.

Usually when I read business strategy books they tend to be a little dull.  "Boom - Marketing to the Ultimate Power Consumer - The Baby Boomer Woman" by Mary Brown and Carol Osborn was far from dull.  

The Boomer woman are sophisticated shoppers that are not always a marketing focus.  Boom helps the marketer identify where they can accommodate the Boomer woman.  With helpful charts and assessment tools the reader can identify where their Boomer Women marketing is lacking. 

Until I had read "Boom" I never really took much notice to the Baby Boomer woman.  Over the last few weeks I have listened to my customers closely.  A lot of our new moms purchase their maternity and new born portraits through their mothers.  Almost every first year portrait involves a decision by the grandmother.  Most of our wedding photography consultations are also met with decisions and budgets set forth by the brides Baby Boomer mother.  This week alone we have booked over 10 sessions by Baby Boomer women that have their families coming in town over the Thanksgiving holidays.  

The market of fine art portrait photography is highly driven by the Baby Boomer women.  They are not a group you can manipulate with sales talk and fast advertising.  They demand attention to detail, their personal needs and what is important to their family. 

If you run a  business or even work in a corporate environment this is a must read. 

Posted by danny at 05:56 AM | Permalink

My grandfather, Dr. Charles Clark, recently had his novel "Return to Dos Encinos" chosen as a finalist for the Violet Crown Award through the Writers League of Texas.  This book is the sequel to "Trails To Dos Encinos" and is a great read.  If you dig the old west than grab these two books and have a read.  They make great Christmas gifts too!

Congrats Daddy Clark! 

Posted by danny at 09:41 PM | Permalink

Whitney is about to start Kindergarten so we have started reading books that don't have pictures.  The Wayside School was one of our first books for this task.  The school was built with one class on each story of a thirty story building.  Originally the design was to build a one story school with thirty classes but something went terribly wrong. 

The chapters are about each student in the class on the thirtieth floor.  All the stories are relatively wacky but there are a few with some off color humor.  Those were the ones that I had to either change the story or just skip all together.  This was a book I remember reading when I was a kid.  It was a lot of fun reading it to Whitney and she especially liked it when I made up voices for the different people.

We are on to bigger books now and have recently started "The Jungle Book".  It is very long but does have a few pretty pictures. 

Posted by danny at 04:39 PM | Permalink

For Christmas in 1982 my Uncle Jimmy and Aunt Toni gave me this book as a gift.  It was always one of my favorite books because of the awesome paintings of Ul de Rico.  The story is about seven little goblins that drink the colors of the rainbow.  Each page is a beautiful painting done on wood that completely mesmerizes a child.

Recently I found this old book in a box.  I immediately sat the kids down and we read the book.  It was fun to see their excitement when I explained to them that this was a book from when I was a little boy.  This alone sparked a series of questions and conversations that I know most parents would enjoy.  They loved reading about the goblins and their silly dance when the storms came.  James has become completely smitten with this book and manges to sleep with it every night.  He took it to school the other day and forgot to bring it home.  Happiness was a stranger at our house that night....

We have enjoyed reading the book which I am sure my Uncle Jimmy and Aunt Toni never knew I would read to my own little ones 25 years later.  Unfortunately the old book has become brittle and lose in its binding.  So I found it on Amazon.com and we now have a fresh new version for the kids to enjoy.  The old book was put back in the box for safe keeping transitioning from a children's book to a fond memory.  Funny how even a books life can change over time. 

Posted by danny at 12:02 PM | Permalink

 Recently I purchased this book as a recommendation of my previous purchases at Amazon.com.  I wasn't sure if it was going to be any good but over all it was quite entertaining.  It is apparent to me now that graphic designers take a lot more of their minute elements very seriously and with a lot of historical reference. 

The book is broken into three parts: 

Letter:  The Letter section goes into high level detail about the history of font faces and its evolution due to the growth of computers and the World Wide Web.  In addition it has a great section on terminology of fonts and why fonts are classified as script, serif, or bold.  This first section definitely sparks the need to learn more about the history and makeup of font faces. 

Text:  The Text section was interesting due to the historical nature of graphic and layout design.  A lot of the way magazines and modern books are designed is driven by Swiss designers.  This section follows a historical reference of layouts and explains why and when text is blocked, justified and mixed case.  In addition it covers the practical and impractical ways to manipulate text to build an emotion or feeling of the content.   

Grid:  The Grid section was a little complicated to follow.  It does dwell on some of the design elements of web development that is taught when designing websites.  These were ideas such as title and table of content placement.  This subject of design is obviously very complicated and mundane.  While its apparent the author intended on a high level explanation it seems to be an element that would take a lot of education and practice to fully understand. 

Overall the book was very entertaining and educational.  It definitely inspires the need to read more about the history and influence of fonts.  The design of advertisements, text and websites have a lot more underlying influences than imagined.  Going forward with the tools from this book will inspire proper design, font selection and text placement.  It may sounds boring but overall the end results will be more pleasing to the eye.

Posted by danny at 02:55 PM | Permalink