I recently learned that Peachpit has a little tradition that occurs when new books finally get sent off to the printer and the work of writing, editing, designing, and proofing a book is finally over. They get a few people together, call the author, and bang a gong over the phone. An actual gong.

I’m happy to report that today I got that call. My new book, Designing the Obvious, has officially been sent to the printer. Hooray!

The side of me that’s still young wants to spend the evening drinking beer in celebration. The part of me that’s old wants to finally rest and get some sleep.

Eh - I can sleep tomorrow. Right now, I’ll let the beer side win.

Just a quick update:

My book, Designing the Obvious: A Common Sense Approach to Web Application Design, goes to the printer this Thursday, and should be officially released on time, on lucky Friday the 13th (of October, no less - in the same month as Halloween).

I think this is a good sign, however, because I love horror movies. My wife, on the other hand, feels a little differently.

I bumped into Garrick Chow (Lynda.com) on the last day of FlashForward last week and did a quick interview for the daily video podcast right before I left the hotel to catch my flight back to Phoenix.

The video is now available on the FlashForward homepage. There are several interviews during the video, and mine is a couple minutes in.

Thanks again to all who attended my session.

I met Hillman Curtis today. Hillman is one of my personal heroes. He’s a fantastic designer and artist, and he has always been a huge inspiration for me.

A Peachpit editor introduced me to him in the exhibition hall at FlashForward this morning. We talked for a few minutes, he signed my copy of his book, asked about my new book (Designing the Obvious), and said he’d love to read it. I told him I’d be sure to get a copy to him.

Great guy. Very personable, extremely insightful and intelligent, very well-spoken.

Did I mention he’s one of my heroes?

My session at Flashforward, Designing the Obvious, is now over and I’m happy to say it went very well. Thanks to the FlashForward crew for making sure everything ran smoothly.

(This is a shot of Scott Fegette’s session, but the room I spoke in was just like this one. This is from the back row - the room holds 200-300 people.)

Quite a few people stuck around afterwards to ask questions about specific design problems they’re having, and I’d like to thank all of them for asking such great questions.

If you have more questions, please feel free to contact me. I’m happy to help out.

Also, keep in mind that I am now offering expert reviews in a couple of flavors, so check out the rest of my site for info on onesheet and full-fledged usability reviews.