Last night I attended the AIGA Chicago Small Talk at the LoveLeaf Press studios. Amanda Love, the studio owner, is blessed with humor, modesty and a great last name. She began her career as a graphic designer and her love of books and all things tactile lead her to book making. The art of book making is precious, timeless and requires a great deal of patience. Amanda’s conceptual process is much like John Maeda’s fourth Law of Simplicity…

Learn: Knowledge makes everything simpler. 

Amanda’s design process has cultivated it’s style through years of learning, trying, re-doing and more learning. With each of her clients she spends most of her time talking with them, learning about their personality, their quirks and what makes their art unique. She said that similar to a dog looking like their owner, books look like their owners. Not the most glamours way to visualize her design process, but effective. By diving down deep into someones mind, and seeing her clients from a different perspective the book’s design-fabrics, textures and layouts-is born.

In addition to fulfilling a breath of beautiful books for established photographers she has also started a LoveBooks. LoveBooks is a fabulous portfolio option for a fraction of the cost of a fully custom book.  

Event hosted by: AIGA Chicago
Event Sponsored by: Dupli Graphics (who does most of the printing for LoveLeaf: photographers take note!) and Artisan Recruiters
LoveLeaf: loveleafpress.com or check out their blog at loveleafpress.blogspot.com