I’m a fan of music and a musician myself, with a history of going to dozens if not hundreds of shows in my life time. Everything from huge stadium tours and festivals to intimate club settings and house concerts. I also have experience designing books, and happen to have this online store that features music-focused merchandise, so creating a beautiful concert journal was a was a natural fit for me. But now I’d like to tell the story about how I got there.
My old friend Brian, who was even more concert obsessed than I was, decided to put together a book that logged every show and concert he had attended, and I was with him for most of them. Another music friend of ours, who is also a fellow graphic designer, created the book and printed a few copies, of which I was one of the proud recipients of course! That was the inspiration; then came the research. I quickly found out that I wasn’t the only one who had thought of the idea of a concert log book. In fact there were quite a few already listed on Etsy, the first platform I started selling from. The first one I came across, that was selling quite well, is called CONCERTS REMEMBERED.
Cool. But I wondered how I could improve on the idea. The first thought was that I would design it in a cleaner, more contemporary and efficient style. The next issue was the content – I didn’t want to just copy a successful product. Besides, I had my own experience to fall back on. What info would I like to record for each show? How would I prioritize it? How much space should I leave for the various sections? And what about the size, and the number of pages? It turns out that some of these things were determined in part by printing restrictions and economies, which were not foreign considerations to me, since I also run a print store/print management service (see https://printfourteen.ca/) But at the end of the day the marketplace will decide if I indeed came up with a superior product - it always does, no matter what business you’re in. But my final question was to figure out how to make it unique, and set it apart from the competition. My solution: PERSONALIZATION. I imagined that this little book would usually end up being presented to someone as a gift, and what better gift to give than one that has the giftee’s name on it. Of course that meant I couldn’t print a whack of them for a few bucks each and store them in a warehouse somewhere. Each one will need to made from scratch. Fortunately the concept of made-to-order POD (print on demand) was not new, and I was fortunate enough to find a way to make it work. More costly? Yes, for sure, so I can’t effectively compete on price, but so be it – still, customers seem to appreciate the value of giving a beautiful and personal gift to someone who will use it to record deeply personal experiences.
One last thing… My friend Brian called his book I WAS THERE. I liked and asked him if I could use it. Permission given; the rest is (musical) history.
I have both hard cover and soft cover versions available - you can have a look at both the Hardcover, and the Softcover
AND a different version called THE CHRONICLES - more portable and discreet, making it a better choice to actually take to shows.
Rock on.