West By Sea Update #5
(You can also view this update on the Kickstarter project page.)
Hi everyone, it was a busy weekend. Did we mention we hate daylight savings time? That’s one reason we’re going WEST by sea – 25 hour days!
- Updated the KS video (new Ed outtake) and posted to new YouTube channel
- Received sponsored Juicies cables & swapped into the WBS command center
- Drafted guest blog post for Jetset Times.
- Started collecting Twitter followers: Sun/0, Mon/31, Tues/86, Weds/131 and counting. Follow us!
- Contacted by Drobo about sponsoring their product
- Contacted by a potential 5th segment backer
- Added a whole bunch of new rewards ($100 ‘certificate’, $150 ‘segmenter’, $180 ‘bookbinder’)
- Stickied by Slacker’s Haven (thanks Andy)
- Downloaded Adobe CS 6 applications to start the free trial month.
- (Plus we started cleaning the entire house for the showing on Saturday 3/16… Whew.)
Today we’re going to share two things. First some ‘sample’ blog entries and then a concept sketch for the book.
So, the problem with doing a project about the future is your actual content hasn’t happened yet. It’s hard to show all the backers what they’re backing. Fortunately we’ve done a lot of travel and can pull from our “back catalog”. So we did mock-ups of what two typical days might look like. We modeled having only 30 minutes to post from a slow satellite connection over a web interface. Thank goodness for WordPress: the test went great.
Click the screen shots to view the blog entries. You can also view them as a PDF.
Keep in mind that these are only mock-ups. The actual posts will contain comments and photos about actual events in near real-time.
Once we’re back it’ll be time to finalize the book. This is why we want to bring really reliable IT gear like the Drobo and the Macbook Pro – we need to ship the book by November. The more work that gets done underway, the quicker it goes to print and then out to you. So we’re getting up to speed again with InDesign and Illustrator.
Here’s our first concept sketch of Day 28 and Day 29.
For each day we need to fit in a quote, tribute, photos, ships position, day/date/activity and a writeup about the day. That’s a lot to cram into a 9″x6″ page! We intend for each segment to have a different layout, color scheme and elements. We’ll be collecting textures and elements along the way. The working titles for each segment are:
- Oceanus: Sydney to Dubai (Far East and Africa feel)
- Mediterranius: Dubai to London (Egypt, Middle East and European feel)
- Atlantius: London to New York (Scandinavian feel)
- Pan Americus: New York to Los Angeles (Caribbean and Central American feel)
- Pacificus: Los Angeles to Sydney (South Seas Islands feel)
The book will probably be filled with “easter eggs”. More on that in later updates. If you’re imaginative you can probably guess what some of them might be from the concept drawing.
That’s it for now. Our success – collective success – depends on you, SHARING this project with your networks. Do you know a school full of kids that might like to follow along? Are you a member of an alumni group who would benefit from vicarious travel? Do you have a media contact who might spread the word? Then it really is up to you!
As always THANKS for your faith and commitment to Join us on the Journey.
—————-
Ed & Michelle
westbysea@gmail.com
www.westbysea.com
