Celebrating Two Years of Dine X Design With Blurb

Happy 2nd Birthday DXD! Toot Toot! Beep Beep!

I can't believe it's been two years since I decided to dim the lights at The Cuisinerd and undergo a full rebranding and refresh.

Launching Dine X Design came out of the need for a designated place to share work & personal projects while featuring the amazing creative talents I've met along the way. What started as a quirky little food blog many years ago needed to be transitioned into a design-focused lifestyle destination that has since branched offline and into the real world.

I feel very blessed with the opportunities and adventures that DXD has given to me since hitting the first nerve–racking publish button.

So, when Blurb asked me to create something special with them, I knew it should be a documentation of my favorite moments over the past two years. A "best of" year book - highlighting this incredible community that has been created around the concept of "dining by design".

What I didn't realize is how much I'd get into the book making process. I mean, I haven't even put together a book of my wedding photos that happened nearly 7 years ago!

Let's just say I'm a book making convert and I've become a little obsessed with the process....

For the DXD Yearbook I decided to go with the Trade Book format with an image wrap hard cover... which is velvety soft to the touch! I also preferred the look and size of a moleskin journal, which made this project feel like a special memento, or visual diary, without the pressure of needing to turn the website into a full scale coffee table book.

While designing my yearbook, I used the free BookWrite program rather than InDesign, which gave me a lot of personal freedom and ease to the layout process...aka: less stress about typos or low res images because they have a built in image and spell check to insure that the final piece comes through without flaw.

When DXD Year Book arrived, I was floored by the quality. I have many many years of experience working as a Creative Director in print advertising... and I never expected a service such as Blurb to produce a product so crisp and well made.

This quality paired with my newly discovered book making obsession, sent me on a mission to immediately follow up the DXD Year Book with another project to see what the other printed formats would look like.

Ta Da! You Got Served...THE MAGAZINE!

Talk about a passion project. It felt REALLY good to see all 21 sessions of YOU GOT SERVED come to life in print form. In fact, the project translates so much better offline when you can flip through and compare each of the three subjects per prop box. *Above Photo Spoiler Alert - it even includes Chapter 007 which hasn't even hit the website yet...if you're a fan of the series you can expect that to start back up in a few weeks!

Needless to say, I am SO pleased with how this turned out and that the Blurb quality extends over into the magazines as well.

I have a feeling this isn't the last book or magazine I make you guys.....it feels so good to have a few years of hard work and fabulous memories in hand. Talk about an appropriate way to celebrate this website that will live on my bookshelf much longer then possibly the zeros and ones of the internet might hold.....

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZEtiFJGa6YM

Have any of you tried making books with Blurb!?

Would you be interested in your own copy of YOU GOT SERVED Magazine!?

Tell me everything, because my love for print has resurfaced and put me in a freshly pressed, paper and ink smell kind of frenzy!!

This post has been sponsored by Blurb, Thank you for supporting our work with quality brands like this which allow DXD to bring you even more original series & content that you love.