Design Book real life examples?

[John Poole]

I see various books of "shop drawings" of Stickley and Arts & Craft designers and wonder if anyone knows of sites where photos of an actual product made from a particular design featured in a book exists.

It's one thing to see drawings, it's another to see a real life example.

If anyone know of websites that have photos of projects built that pretty much conform to the design in a particular book, I would be interested to see.

I just wonder if the designs in some of these books are of pieces that might not be considered their best designs.

A book publisher would do well to have at their site contain photos of real life examples of each design included in the book they sell.

[Bob Lang]

Hi John,

I'm the author of the "Shop Drawings for Craftsman Furniture" books I believe you are referring to. Photo resources of original Stickley furniture pieces are pretty easy to come by either in print or online. A Google image search on "Gustav Stickley" takes .22 seconds and delivers 3970 hits. Auction sites are good sources, in particular Treadway Gallery and David Rago's Craftsman Auctions. Dover publishes reprints of original Stickley catalogs and these are also good resources.

One book can't be everything for everybody. I modeled my book after other drawing books, such as Ejner Handberg's and John Kassay's books on Shaker furniture. I'm a history geek as well as a furniture geek, and my drawings are based on original examples of the period. I saw a real need for this type of information for this important furniture style, particularly because so much of what has been published doesn't accurately reflect the original details, and there is a lot of confusion created by this.

Choosing what pieces to include and what to leave out was one of the more difficult parts of this work. I believe that the 57 pieces in my books are a good representation of the style, and contain enough information to enable someone to build similar pieces.

Yes it would be nice to have included photos of finished pieces in the books or on the website, but the economic realities of publishing prevent this. In the end a book is a product that must sell enough to justify its production costs, and the risks of marketing it. The market for something like this is small enough that there have to be limits on time and money to get it produced. My upcoming book on Greene and Greene furniture will include photos for about half of the pieces included. This is possible because the earlier books were successful enough to justify the extra cost for the publisher.

Bob Lang

[Paul Canaris]

Please let us all know when your next book comes out, I am very intersted in Greene and Greene.

[John Poole]

...
Yes it would be nice to have included photos of finished pieces in the books or on the website, but the economic realities of publishing prevent this.
...
Bob Lang
Hi Bob,

Ummm... I don't understand how it can be any ongoing expense to stage photographs on the publisher's website of examples actually built from the drawings in the book? I can understand color photos, or photos, in a printed edition increasing the production costs, but the beauty of a website is that it costs nothing to add additional content. So, what are the economic factors that prevent you from taking some snapshots of pieces featured in your book and offering them through the web (maybe through a restricted site which requires an agreement not to infringe on the copyright)?

I'm assuming you have built examples using your drawings (i.e., the proof of the pudding is in the making).

Although this pleading may not flush out photos of the examples in your books, perhaps as you finalize your Greene & Greene book, you'll keep this point in mind and have a comprehensive photo inventory of the items you feature.

As I think about this, I guess I could see that offering photos of the finished work might cannabalize sales of the book... I guess the trick is to offer photographs that can give a sense of proportion, yet not give away your work product. Maybe having a model in the photo that hides certain features? Maybe this is asking too much?

I just would prefer to see a living example before undertaking some serious hours; I'm not interested in making my own artistic statement/enhancement (though if a settle were 60" wide, I might stretch it to 63" so I could stretch out on it), it is reward enough for me to accurately duplicate.

I'm quite fond of Greene & Greene (understatement) and applaud any effort to publish material which allows others to recreate their works. What will be interesting to see is what you'll feature and your securing the permission of the people/institutions who own the actual pieces being featured; I have found they are extremely protective of any recreation rights which is unfortunate for everyone. I guess if you paid $395,000 for a breakfast table, you wouldn't want your neighbor recreating it for free. Why eleemolsynary (http://dictionary.reference.com/search?r=2&q=eleemosynary) institutions that enjoy tax free status actively take steps to prevent copying of work whose copyright status has fallen into the public really does befuddle me; I'll bet this point strikes a chord with you, too.

Hmmm... do you or your publisher assert a copyright over the designs offered in your books? So if I made a chair using precisely the information provided in the book, would I be required to obtain approval before publishing a photo on the net of what I had created?

John

[Bob Lang]

Production costs are the major reason. Any content added increases the cost and raises the price, or lowers the return. If you use someone elses photo, you have to pay for it. If you build a piece of furniture just to take a photo of it, the time and material to do that must be figured in to the equation. This is true whether for print or the internet. These are drawings of well-known historic pieces, so I guess I don't get what it is you're looking for.

As far as copyright goes, the drawings are protected, but the designs themselves are not. As historic objects, they are in the public domain.

Bob Lang