For the 20th anniversary of creating my annual Christmas playlist, I created a special keepsake book with all 20 playlists in one place. Since the playlist was named “Oh Tannebaum!” every year, I decided to call the book “Oh Tannenbook!” to indicate that it was a collection of all the playlists.

The Challenge

I wanted to create a professionally printed, high quality, highly polished book that people who receive it will want to keep on their coffee table during the holidays. I also wanted it to be durable so that it survives consistent use through holiday season after holiday season. And I also wanted it to be an unconventional shape to make it seem even more special. Additionally, I wanted to display both the cover art and the track list with the QR code easily usable.

The Solution

After some brief research I settled on using Blurb for the book printing. I had used them for other gifts before and found their product to be very high quality. From there, I settled on their 7 inch by 7 inch lay flat book with a two-page layout per playlist to highlight both the cover art and the track list. This also left room for QR codes for both Apple Music and Spotify. The design for each playlist was standardized:

• the page background would be the color of the paper folder I used each year (from 2006 forward, it was a unique color),
• the left page would have the cover art, and
• the right page would have the track list and QR codes.

Final Product

Organization

Personal Project