Update
Shortly after we posted this, we launched The YouWorkForThem Book Archive in response to everyones comments. We hope you enjoy this new section of design information.
The Bad News
This year has been a strange one for YWFT, that is for sure. As 2009 brought us many new challenges with the economy, we have been able to tough out yet another economic disaster (we started YWFT right after 9/11). This of course would not have been possible if some changes were not made. The most noticeable and recent change was the removal of the books section on our site. When we went online back in 2002, the book section was quite popular and very successful. While we as a company never really made much profit on our books (no gold teeth as of yet), we loved having access to these books in-house, supporting the designers and providing great inspiration for our many customers. Around 2007 though, we started to notice it was getting really difficult to keep up with the almighty Amazon. To this day, we do not understand how a company can sell a product $1 over cost, and give away free shipping. But maybe that is why they are on the stock market, and we are not. So, when push came to shove, what can we (current staff = 6) do against a giant, public-traded company like Amazon? So we did what we had to do for our own health. We threw in the towel. Now, we know we might lose many of you as customers, because maybe you only came here for the books? But in order to continue on with the rest of our business we had to make this decision, and maybe should have done this back in 2007.
The Good News
With all great changes come something good! Now that the smoke has cleared from the book war, we can get back to being designers and keep pushing on with our fonts and stock art collections. Starting a few months back, we went full force into adding new font and stock designers to our arsenal. As well, a few months back we did some house cleaning and got rid of older collections we no longer thought fit the bill. In the past few months alone, we have added over 100 new products to the font and stock art sections. We also rebuilt the entire stock video collection, with HD videos starting for the price of $24.99. Yeah, our prices are still lower than that other stock company called i something.
So, yes it was a sad day at YWFT to finally say good bye to making and selling the best design books in the industry. But with this sadness comes an exciting future for what we can bring to the industry as a real force and unique alternative in font and stock design.
Sincerely &Â Happy Holidays,
Michael Paul Young
Creative Director / President
Posted in YouWorkForThem
Post Tags: 2009, amazon, books, death, design, fug, moving on, the system
Post Comment
I raise my glass you !
Cheers … and long life !
Happy Holidays
I think this was a really good move.
Im from the UK so I couldn’t buy a book from YWFT just because the shipping cost as much as the product.
So I would buy from the great list of digital files you have and I think this is a good road to go down.
It’s really sad to see the books section closed. I’ve always been a fan since i found WeWorkForThem, hopefully we will see the effort deviate toward more design production.
I just wish the shipping from your online store would be sent to Lebanon too.
Cheers
Not a problem.
Designer books are nice, but what good are they if I can’t get it on my shelf.
I’ve bought a few digital things from ya guys and I’m happy with it. I was sticking to that anyway.
Maybe you’ll just get a few collector’s editions in your store like 3-4 times a year and that’s that.
Cheers!
a.f
Thanks for all the amazing design books, appreciate it.
[...] YouWorkForThem no longer carries books (or any hardgoods for that matter). Michael wrote a nice post on their blog explaining the decision. While we’re bummed that we’re a great book [...]
Can you guys possibly make a new section on the blog or site for book suggestions? Even if we can’t buy the books through the site anymore (which is understandable) suggestions on good design books from the people who are at the cutting edge of design would still be really good.
There are so many “grid” “type” “graphic design” books out there and knowing which ones you think are the best would be valuable.
They posted an advice thing awhile back, I use it for my students. http://www.youworkforthem.com/.....dvice-101/
[...] effet, leur blog annonçait cette semaine la fin d’une ère où un petit village de 6 braves designers osait [...]
I tried to make the extra effort to order titles from you guys over amazon through the years so needless to say I am so sad to hear about the books!
I think someone mentioned a curated blog of You Work for Them’s recommended books. Pretty please?
This is tragic, but I hope it helps. Is there anyway you could post your suggested reads?
I second David g’s comment - your book descriptions were so helpful.. I’d love to be able to refer to them now when buying books.
Agreed. The first thing I thought was… Keep a book review section! I always loved the sense of design history and education that ywft fostered. This will be sad to see that disappear. Hopefully, you can work in some blog posts that keep this alive, in some capacity.
Thanks for the kind words everyone. We actually started working a few months back on putting together a archive section where you can still reference all the images and text we had on these goods. Stay tuned…
total bummer duuuudez… you should publish recommendations or something, you guys had the killerest selection!
This is very disappointing. I enjoyed this section a lot.