Scrapbooking
The majority of people I know are involved with scrapbooking in one way or another. They are either selling supplies, making their own, or have received one as a gift. My wife and her friends get together on a semi-regular basis to talk and build scrapbooks. (but mostly talk)
When I read this article from the New York Times I immediately thought of how it will change the scrapbooking industry. The article mainly talks about this company. The company offers free software called BookSmart. With BookSmart you graphically design an entire book using your words, fonts, and pictures. It's exactly the same as scrapbooking except you don't need any paper, stickers, cutting systems, or pictures from Wal-Mart. You have the full power of a computer to design, cut, resize, re-color, or re-write the entire book.
Once you've designed the book, you upload the design to Blurb. They print it on coated paper, bind it with linen fabric hard cover, and wrap it with your custom dust jacket. The cost is about $50 per book. That's roughly half the cost of a completed scrapbook. The best part is you can make multiple copies. You only need to create one scrapbook for you, Mom, and Grandma.
The future is a clean dining room table seated with 5 ladies on laptops.
When I read this article from the New York Times I immediately thought of how it will change the scrapbooking industry. The article mainly talks about this company. The company offers free software called BookSmart. With BookSmart you graphically design an entire book using your words, fonts, and pictures. It's exactly the same as scrapbooking except you don't need any paper, stickers, cutting systems, or pictures from Wal-Mart. You have the full power of a computer to design, cut, resize, re-color, or re-write the entire book.
Once you've designed the book, you upload the design to Blurb. They print it on coated paper, bind it with linen fabric hard cover, and wrap it with your custom dust jacket. The cost is about $50 per book. That's roughly half the cost of a completed scrapbook. The best part is you can make multiple copies. You only need to create one scrapbook for you, Mom, and Grandma.
The future is a clean dining room table seated with 5 ladies on laptops.
posted by mattjustmull | 10:36 AM | permalink
4 Comments:
What are you doing, trying to kill my business?? :) Just kidding. I have heard of this. Me being the techie that I am, I love this idea. However, I don't think that It would mean as much if you did it that way. It wouldn't be as crafty. I mean, anyone can buy a card or print on off the computer, but the ones made by hand are waaaay better. The idea is great. I think there are multiple companies actually doing it already. And I would say that I would rather people scrapbook this way than not to do it at all. :)
bah! While one may argue that this is simpler and cheaper to acheive what a scrapbook acheives, the purpose of scrapping for me and many like me is that it is a creative outlet. It's like saying to a painter "Hey you know, you could use a computer to do that landscape". It's just not the same.
I would not argue that this method is easier. The hard work is still in the creativity. You still have to crop, cut, and paste. However, you cannot deny it has advantages. It's cheaper. You can make multiple copies for multiple family members. It's digital, which means it lasts 'forever'. If someone spills a drink on it, your house burns down, child/pet damage, it's replaceable. It takes up considerably less space; both the equipment and the finished product.
It is a creative outlet. Painters do give up their paints to draw on computers. Scroll through the CG Society Challenge contestants. All of that art work is done on computer. Go to AppleGeeks and watch how Hawk draws on his Wacom Cintiq.
Obviously people still use paint to do paintings, and people will still do traditional scrapbooking. However, I think Nora's generation is going to have just as many digital scrapbookers as paper scrapbookers.
I gotta agree with Matt, this world is becoming much more digital in everything we do. Our generation would still do the scrapbooking by hand for the same reason as you all have explained. However, when it comes to Nora's generation, I bet we see more and more digital scrapbooks, in fact, they may even be the big thing, not handcrafted one's.
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