ronald1052 Thanks to Outlook Portland for featuring designer Megan Clark, author Paul Sorenson, and I on a recent TV segment. Here is the evidence:
Check out the other two segments on the Our Portland Story YouTube Channel.
Wordstock This Weekend
Our Portland Story Volume One will be available for sale at the Wordstock Book Fair this Saturday and Sunday – October 9th and 10th at the Oregon Convention Center, 777 NE MLK Jr. Blvd from 10:00 a.m. – 6:00 p.m. Find the book at the p:ear booth. p:ear is an organization that creatively mentors homeless street youth, and I have personally been volunteering with them for two years. The book will be on sale for $28, cash or check only, and $6 from every book sold will go directly to p:ear. I will be volunteering at the booth personally from 2:00-6:00 on Saturday.
Delivery by Bike
Our Portland Story is offering free bike delivery of books to the inner Portland Metro area for those who enter “PDX Bike Delivery” in the city field when purchasing books online. We will bike deliver the books right to your door within a week. We thought this would be a fun way to get some exercise, and create a fun promo!
Art Opening and Readings at Backspace in November
We are also happy to announce a save the date notice for our second event, an art show and reading event at Backspace – 115 NW 5th Ave. The fine folks at Backspace have graciously offered their gallery space for the month of November. The curator will be choosing pages from the book that we will have enlarged, printed, framed and displayed in the gallery. The gallery will officially open on November 4th, in a First Thursday evening event party. That night we will have readings, music, drinks, etc. I will notify you if you are an author or designer whose page is chosen to be displayed. Until then, save the date!
The CW’s TV show, Outlook Portland, asked Our Portland Story to appear as a guest to talk about the book, the people and the process. I asked OPS author, Paul Sorenson and designer, Megan Clark to join me in the interview. The taping went very well, and I am happy to announce that the segment will air on October 17th, 2010 at 6:30 am on the CW. If you miss it then, it will be available online as well, and I will post when it goes up. The interview featured readings from Paul’s page along with Aimee Heigold’s story, and the topics and design of the pages by Alice Gustafson and Molly Wolverton were discussed among other mentions. Thanks to the folks at Outlook Portland for the opportunity!
Thanks to all the 200+ attendees of the Our Portland Story Volume One launch party last night at Mississippi Studios! What a great crowd, and a truly successful, rain-free kick-off. Mad props to the readers of the evening: Lois Leveen, Steve Snell, Natalie El-Jourbagy, Dan Haneckow, Katy Kavanaugh, Joy Cartier, Matt Wiater , Miriam Feder, Paul Sorenson, Richard Mavis, and Dan Peski.
If you missed out on the fun, don’t fret. You can buy the book online from the “Shop” tab above, or stay tuned as we get more events and readings on the calendar.
More photos from the event can be found on the facebook page or flickr.
Thanks to DJ Ryan Scheel, my wonderful group of volunteer friends, and Mississippi Studios for making the event a success!
We invite you to join us as Our Portland Story celebrates its inaugural book launch on September 23rd, 2010. The event is FREE and books will be available for the first time, for $28, cash only.
The party will be hosted by the wonderful folks at Mississippi Studios, and the event is all ages. We will host the party out on the patio unless the weather pushes us inside. The party will be private, limited to authors, designers and their guests from 5:30-6:30. Then from 6:30-8:30 the party will be open to the public and feature readings from selected OPS authors: Lois Leveen, Richard Mavis, Natalie Morad El-Jourbagy, Dan Haneckow, Katy Kavanaugh, Joy Cartier, Matt Wiater, and Paul Sorenson.
Below are the details about the event.
Date:
September 23rd
Location:
Mississippi Studios
3939 N. Mississippi, Portland, OR 97227
Timeline:
5:30 – Doors open to authors and designers only, each allowed one guest
5:30-6:30 – Welcome + book buying/giving + author/designer meet and greet
6:30 – Party is open to the public
6:45-7:45 – Speakers + readings + book buying
7:45- 8:30 - Closing party with DJ Ryan Scheel
9:00pm – Mississippi Studios hosts music by: PERFUME GENIUS, BRIGHT ARCHER plus guests . Stick around to hear the music after the book party: Cost: $10.
I look forward to meeting all of the wonderful contributors, and welcoming the public to celebrate this initial launch!
Our Portland Story has been actively seeking local design talent since January of 2009. Over the course of the past seven months, we have been meeting with several designers a week, going over the project and matching them up with a story that fits their particular design/illustration style and interests. Since all 77 stories get a page in the book, and every page in the book is assigned a different designer, this has been a long, but rewarding process. There are 11 pages yet to be assigned to a designer, so if you are a designer interested in contributing a page, please contact melissa@ourportlandstory.com.
Portland photographer, Bryan Hoybook, met up with OPS page designer, Matt Morasky, of Citizengraphics to document Matt’s creative process for his OPS page on camera. Matt was assigned the story “Old Town Chinatown Chinese” by Brian T. Wilson. This story takes you on a journey through Chinatown’s various food offerings complete with the author’s recommendations. The author writes: “I quite often hear people say that Chinatown is disappearing, but we still have more than a half-dozen restaurants to choose from daily. Many only eat in Chinatown for lunch, but there is a notable amount that go for a morning or Sunday dim sum. I often suggest families go to House of Louie or, for someone looking specifically for dim sum, I direct them to Wong Kee. For friends and residents, I often do a cheer for Mandarin House…”
Matt concepted and sketched several ideas that combined photos he took, with the text and images that Brian provided, and Chinese restaurant menu scans. Matt’s final design concept (shown above, right) was described by him as the following: “…this approach plays off the travel/tourist guide. Speech balloons carry the copy like a narrative. In the background, the city blocks that make up Chinatown are constructed of cut paper copies of Chinese food menus (taken from the Golden Horse). The top title is an illustrated version of the Old Town Chinatown MAX stop.”
Thanks to Matt, for letting us take a peek into your design process and thanks to Bryan for the photography. Please view a sampling of other completed OPS pages on our facebook page.