Hi all,

I had some discussion with a guy from one of the places I work,
about his thesis. (To be exact he is from the department of
medical physiology of the university of Utrecht in the
Netherlands). He knew I had made some covers before and liked them.
We had some preliminary discussion a couple of months before
but he has got a date for his defence now, so it all is somewhat
more real. I told him I already had decided that I wanted to
pass it on to the POV community (see my mail of april 16th) if
1) I had not much time and
2) if the subject of the thesis was a bit outside my normal work
and there was therefore no reason to assume I could do it
better than anyone of you.
Both apply in this case (I would not have written this mail
otherwise).

I discussed what I intended to offer and he agreed, so here
is my first job assignment and if it works more will come, I
hope.

This is what I propose:

- I make a short description for the layman of what his thesis
  is about and what ideas we already discussed.
  This could serve as a source of inspiration. There is no need
  to create an image that covers the whole thesis, but a clear
  link to the work involved is necessary of course.
- everybody here is invited to submit a concept of an image.
  at this stage no real image is yet required, but it could
  help us making a selection. previous made images could
  also be helpful.
- from this concepts we choose (maximum) 3 to be turned into

  'semi-finalists' for the time spent in creating this
  image.
- from these images we select the 'winner'. He or she
  gets the assignment to make the cover of this thesis.

  of the final image (plus, say, 5 copies of the final
  thesis if desired).

Additional notes
- suggested timetable for this cover: June 10, selection
  of semifinalists, July 1st selection of winner.
  by August 1st the cover must be finished and the thesis
  goes to the printer.
- In my experience the money will not cover the time
  it takes to make a good image. My experience is that
  it often takes more than 40 hours to get it right.
  I do not think I can get a more realistic price,
  because PhD students generally do not have much money.
  In other words it is more the fun of seeing some of
  your work in print that that you can make a living
  out of it.
- This is work with a definite deadline. The thesis must
  go to the printer by about August 1st (my estimate).
  If it is not finished by then, we are in deep trouble.
- interaction of designer and author is often required to
  get something both are really happy with.
- the dimensions are generally 24 by 17 cm (more or less B5)
  Nearly invariably in paperback, hard covers exist but only
  in the rare case that the PhD student has a lot of money.
- A thesis normally contains 150-250 pages.
- in general 400-500 copies are made, not just a few, like
  in e.g. the US.
- theses are printed at commercial printers, they often have
  even ISBN numbers.
- Apart from the thesis itself there is often an invitation
  to the party. I like to do that in the same style as the
  cover, but with a twist. For one thesis I replaced the
  cup of coffee in the table with some glasses of wine for
  the invitation to the party. I made a proposal for another
  cover (that I finally did not make) where I had planned to
  replace the cows by pink elephants. Such additional images
  are included in the price.
- He was to sent me some abstracts tonight and he is leaving
  tomorrow morning for a conference. If I don't get them today
  I will make some preliminary abstract from what I remember
  from our previous encounters. I do not want to wait untill
  he comes back, because the schedule is already rather tight.

Comments and questions about the proposed procedure are
very welcome.

	Andrel

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