Blurb Joins Forces with Design Observer and Launches the Thesis Book Project

Thesis Book Project: a platform and public forum for community engagement for design students

San Francisco, Calif.—May 6, 2015— Blurb, Inc., the independent book and magazine publishing platform, today announced an important new partnership with Design Observer, the leading international online publication for news and commentary about design, urbanism, social innovation, and visual culture.

The partnership launches with the Thesis Book Project, an initiative to recognize exceptionally designed student books produced and printed on demand by Bachelor’s and Master’s degree candidates, to share their thesis books using the Blurb tools and platform.

“We’re delighted to partner with Design Observer, one of the preeminent resources for graphic designers in the world,” said Eileen Gittins, founder and CEO, Blurb. “The Thesis Book Project is a great opportunity for graphic design students to present the culmination of their graduate work in beautifully printed and bound books. This is not a competition, but rather an opportunity for emerging talent to showcase their work on a global scale.”

“Our goal is to honor the student—as author and maker—and to elevate the importance of book design to engage a wider audience,” said Jessica Helfand, Creative Director of The Design Observer Group. “We’re thrilled to partner with Blurb with the launch of the Thesis Book Project. By collaborating with a company passionate about designers and books that are graphically beautiful, we are celebrating the Blurb-produced thesis book as an example of design excellence.”

For students in art and design disciplines, the thesis book represents a dazzling encapsulation of intense study: an entire body of work researched, crafted, written, designed, edited, and bound into a single volume. Along with Design Observer, Blurb encourages students to upload sample PDFs of their book. A link to Blurb will allow anyone to buy the final books, with all the proceeds going directly to the student designers.

Students can go to https://thesisbookproject.com for further details.

The partnership between Design Observer and Blurb will feature many future projects, including several books published under a new Design Observer imprint powered by Blurb’s publishing platform to be released later this year.

About Blurb®
Blurb® is a self-publishing platform and creative community that enables individuals to design, publish, share, sell, and distribute photo books, trade books, and magazines in both print and digital formats across the globe using its free, innovative book creation and layout tools. Founded in 2005 by Executive Chairman, Eileen Gittins, Blurb has nearly 2 million independent book authors worldwide, resulting in 3.9 million unique book titles, with more than 14 million units shipped to 80 countries around the world. The company is headquartered in San Francisco and can be found online at www.blurb.com.