Thread's Not Dead
TITLE AVAILABLE AT
Thread’s Not Dead
Barnes & Noble
Book Depository
TITLE INFORMATION
Author: Jeff Finley
Publisher: Go Media Inc.
Year Published: 2011
Dimensions: 8.5”x11”
Pages: 244
Written by apparel entrepreneur, Jeff Finley, with contributions from other designers in the business, Thread’s Not Dead, focuses on the in’s and out’s of owning and running a successful apparel design business. With a multitude of topics ranging from freelancing, to contracting, to design fundamentals, and marketing, this book is written for the novice who is eager to jump into the industry.
I initially purchased this book from Amazon, but when I saw Jeff Finley selling it through his website, at a considerably cheaper price, I decided to reevaluate my purchase and buy straight from the author. I was excited because not only did I purchase a copy of the printed version that is printed to order, but I also received an ebook copy, along with a download pack consisting of photoshop brushes, a few fonts, and some license-free vectors to help start designing right away. To be honest, I don’t really need the vectors, brushes, or typefaces because as a designer, I have been accruing a lot of those for the last few years. But, for a person with little to know design experience, who enjoys Finley’s sense of design, and is eager to get down to business, this will certainly be worth it. Knowing I’d need to wait a week or so before I could begin reading the printed version, I decided to jump right into the ebook.
As soon as I started to read this book, I knew I would be able to read it fast without putting it down. Finley’s writing is so casual, yet professional, that I could read his writing all day long. This makes sense since he’s been maintaining, writing, and curating his blog for quite some time. I also knew reading this would go by fast because none of the information goes too in-depth, allowing for no need to include technical jargon. By glossing over a lot of the technical aspects that mostly deal with manufacturing, Finley is able to discuss about the core responsibilities and duties that a designer will be doing, such as: freelancing, finding work, promoting their business, receiving criticism, deciding on different types of printing and inks, discovering trends, and fulfilling orders and shipping. Although these are some of the main topics he covers, there is so much more that he discusses. Finley also includes tons of information and resources from other designers, blogs, and tutorials that are all hyperlinked throughout the ebook. This is extremely useful because I don’t have to leave the book, and do my own research while reading; I just need to simply click the link and I am taken to whatever he is referencing immediately. Although some of the hyperlinks weren’t linked properly and some of the pages were expired, it is still a nice usability consideration when the links do behave the way they’re supposed to. Another positive to the ebook is the design felt great. It had relatively nice readability, and the typography and the layout were easy to navigate.
Due to all of these positive aspects about the book, I became even more excited to receive the printed version. But as soon as I got it I was extremely disappointed; there was nothing different between the ebook and printed versions of this book. Usually there’s not many differences except for a minor things to help improve readability and legibility that may get lost while crossing platforms. But no one accounted for this. The typography was huge and bold making reading for long times difficult, the layout became bland as it was the same grid layout throughout all 200 pages, and Finley didn’t even bother to remove the underlines from all of the hyperlinked resources that are scattered throughout the book. When it came to the software tutorials in the printed version, it was just a list of underlined tutorial titles. It wasn’t even until many pages later that it mentioned to visit his website to check out the links. To be honest, this kind of bummed me out a bit. I just got finished reading Finley advising to take every detail into consideration and to provide a fantastic brand experience, but then he completely disregarded all of these details. The most upsetting part is if I just ordered the printed version of this book, I would have not realized that these are all supposed to be hyperlinked, resulting in a huge usability fail.
I understand that Finley is not a graphic or interactive designer, and I understand that he published this book through his own design company, but that begins to lower the reputation of the concept of self-publishing. I absolutely love that Finley disregarded submitting this to a publishing house and had it published anyways. I think self-self-publishing removes a lot of the elitism and gate-keeping that can get caught in the way of publishing for everyone, and that is revolutionary. Due to Finley’s experiences of being a significant player of the apparel design business, his extensive list of well-known clients, and the amount of time, writing, and dedication that he put into his blog, I know he is an expert and is able to explain everything that he needs to fantastically. That’s why I trust all of the information in this book, but I still think that this book should have received a little more design attention before being submitted to the printer. I do think that the design of this book does have an impact on the authority and expertise behind this information.
All of this being said, I do think this book is one of, if not the best book of its kind, and any aspiring apparel designer should pick this up and read it from cover to cover. But, if you are not interested in, or only slightly interested in joining this industry, then I don’t think it is worth the money. The whole set cost around fifty dollars (USD) and that is too expensive to justify the cost of the ebook, printed book that is just a printed pdf of the ebook, and some generic vectors, brushed, and fonts that any experienced designer would probably disregard using. This book was also published in 2011, meaning that a lot of the trends, techniques, and marketing schemes have changed since then. Especially the use of social media in apparel marketing, which this book covers lightly, and mostly discusses using Twitter and Facebook. I do think that if this book was updated with more current information, updated resources, and a better designed book, then it would be well worth the fifty dollars.