The Illustration of Rework
March 24, 2010
Rework is a beautifully conceived and designed book, certainly among this year's best. Springing from the big brains of the people at 37signals, the ideas and insights provided are well-written, short and actionable, and they're smartly split up with illustrations by Milwaukeean Mike Rohde. The text alone is probably worthy of an award, but enlisting Rohde to add what he calls skecthnotes puts it in an artistic class business books rarely enter.
It's amazing what we were able to produce in just 16 weeks, all while I worked nights and weekends and had a baby in the middle of the project. Our constant communications and use of Basecamp really made the difference.Amazing, indeed. You can read more about how they managed the process in a previous post from Rohde, or check out the illustrations as a photo set on flickr. Or, if you'd like to learn more about the book, check out the author's ChangeThis manifesto or Jack's Jack Covert Selects review. You won't get the illustrative genius of Mr. Rohde in either of those last two links, but you'll get an idea of the authors' great work—and why you'll want to buy many, many copies of the book. *You can look forward to the release of Scott Belsky's Making Ideas Happen next month to help with this, though.