Bookcase Design

This was a bookcase I designed a while ago. I pulled it out of my design book and dusted it off and I entered it in the recent Lumberjock - Popular Woodworking bookcase design contest. Although it was not a winner I still feel it was a good design. I may of done better in the contest if I would of remembered the words of one my English professors from my college days, she always said “you have to write for your audiences” well I guess when you are designing for a contest that is going to published your design in a magazine, it is a lot like writing a paper for an English class. I didn't design it with that audience in mind, which in this case would have been the magazine. I rushed in and submitted what I thought was a good design, one that was original, but it wasn't one that really fit the format of the magazine. It was just not the kind of project that they published on a regular basis. More over I kind of knew that going into it, because I have been loyal reader of their magazine for many years, and I still went with the design, because; I just knew there was going to be a lot of arts and craft, and green and green style entries, and did not want to enter another one. So, I thought, a federal style bookcase that set low might make an impression, and it did make on the Popular Woodworking's Blog.

One other thing that I think might of hurt me in the contest is I hand drew my entry, and I notice all the winners was summited in Sketchup. Maybe it would have helped to get my vision of my bookcase across better. This is certainly a skill that I need to work on.

So I didn't win, I really didn't expect to. Fact is as the contest grew closer to a close my biggest worry was that I might win, then I would had to make the choice of building the project and writing the article or letting Popular Woodworking do it for me, and I think I would had to go for it, and that was scary. I did learn a little, and I put myself out there, and in the end I know that the editors picked the right bookcase, it sure is the one I would of picked if I had their job.

I might one day get to build this bookcase, I think it would look really nice in a living room, maybe a dining room, or even behind a sofa. The design I think it would certainly challenge one skill to build.

Right now, if I was to build a bookcase for my home. it would probably have an arts and crafts style to it because my wife leans more to the arts and crafts furniture and the table shes wants me to build is an arts and crafts style table and a bookcase would look good setting in our dining room full of woodworking books.

Joey