A E S T H E T I C 2 0 0 7 : The Story of Me Commissioning HUNDREDS OF IMAGES For The Musician’s Guide (And How You Can Help)

Writing a book has always been an idea in the back of my head. It’s amazing that so many people throughout the ages have written books, committing thousands upon thousands of their own words onto paper and convincing somebody to print copies of it.

You can hear a song in a few minutes, you can watch a movie in a few hours without paying that much attention. A book though? That’s a commitment.

And so I always patted myself on the back for being a musician. As hard as it is to get attention for your music, books would be harder. It’s ironic that I am earning more money from writing than from music these days.

The Hard Part of Writing a Book Isn’t The Words

It turns out that the words are the easy part. If you can write a blog post, you can write the words of a book. Just write 200 blog posts, cut it down to the best 50, and then put them in a logical order. Add an intro and an outro. boom. Book text finished.

The hard part is EVERYTHING ELSE.

Book layout and design? Cover artwork? Internal imagery?

Out of all these things, the internal images have been an overwhelming task. I want one or two images per page throughout the entire book. Having this book be a highly visual experience, with all high quality and original graphics, will help it to stand out from the other educational content in existence about Steem.

My goal is for this book to be the best educational resource about music on Steem. Bar none, no exceptions. This book will eradicate any lackluster resources. No Udemy courses. Just a free eBook with the best information, no bullshit.

Good graphics are the key to communicating this information effectively.

And let me tell you: WE ARE ON THE WAY! The reason it’s hard is that I need a good aesthetic. The visuals need to be recognizable and consistent, but I need to be able to use a variety of artists to fulfill the needs of the book.

How to do this? At first I wasn’t sure, so I waited and watched. After a lot of observation of Steem’s art scene, I discovered voxel art.

It’s like pixels but 3-D. And after speaking to and starting to work with my first two voxel artists, @overkillcoin and @fabiyamada, I knew this was the path forward for the book. It’s a unique visual aesthetic that speaks to everything I love about Steem. It’s the past filtered through the lens of the future.

In addition to the artwork from the top, here's two more pieces we are including in the book:

Can you imagine how flavorful the whole book will be, filled with distinct imagery like this? its gonna rule.

I am still eyeing a May 2018 book launch, which means we’d drop at least the first chapter (and a new chapter each week thereafter) starting next month. We’ll see what happens, keep an eye on this blog for the news as it unfolds.