Do The Work!
About the Book
Do the Work is a companion to Steven Pressfield’s well-know and well loved manifesto on the creative process, The War of Art. In Do The Work, Steve takes you from A to Z in the process of starting your project, hitting the brick wall, recognizing your creative blocks for what they are, overcoming your Resistance, and then doing the most important thing: finishing the project.
About the Cover
In 1885, Vincent Van Gogh created this cover drawing, Man with Hoe, as a part of his life-long pursuit “to give happiness by creating beauty.” We were drawn to this image because it represents the quiet strength of a person who actually does the work, regardless of glamour or crowds or the resistance. The drawing is also a reminder that there’s an artist within each of us, and we must encourage that artist to do the work, to make something that matters, regardless of anything else that is going on.
About the Layout
One of our goals with this book was to introduce Steve’s ideas to people who weren’t already a part of his tribe. We knew that the people we were targeting only read one or two books a year, so we decided to try something non-traditional with the layout to make the book easier to approach.
The manuscript has a wonderfully conversational tone and is packed with quotable jewels of wisdom on each page, so we decided to highlight these asides and quotes by integrating pull-quote formatting into the layout. Traditionally, pull-quotes would exist in duplicate, once in the normal flow of the text and then in the pull quote. We chose to format the highlights like pull-quotes, but decided not to pull them out of the flow of the text. This created a tension between the normally formatted sections of the text and the quotes, that made it easier to get sucked into each individual page and created a unique conversational back and forth on the page.
Testimonial from Steven Pressfield
When I first saw Alex’s cover design for Do The Work, I thought, ‘What the hell is this?’ There’s no title; it’s just this crazy drawing. How is this going to work?’ Then I took a step back and said to myself, ‘You know what, Alex has knocked a lot of designs out of the park; maybe I should cool my jets and take another look.’ To make a long story short, virtually every person that sees that cover loves it. Unprompted, unsolicited, without me saying a word, they come up and tell me how great it is. I was wrong. I’m glad I bit my tongue. Thanks, Alex! You can design the next book cover for me any time.
Steven Pressfield, Do The Work!