In mid-January, 2010, photojournalist Major King and reporter Dayle Cedars traveled from Colorado to Haiti to film stories about fellow Coloradoans helping Haitians in need within the devastated areas hit hardest by the January 12th earthquake. A 30-minute special was edited from the resulting hours of footage and aired on Denver, Colorado’s KMGH-TV 7NEWS.

The rest of their powerful coverage will be broadcast in its entirety via podcast. Haiti Unedited is an independently produced series that will unfold over 10 to 15 weekly episodes, each one approximately 30 minutes long. Episodes will contain video shown in chronological order with running commentary from King, Cedars and producer Jon Miller. The podcast will be available to download free at haitiunedited.com and subscribed to through iTunes, Google Reader and RSS feed.

“We’re using the power of this new medium – podcasting – to tell these stories in ways that can’t be told in traditional broadcast media,” explains Miller. “The goal is to produce material that will paint a much more complete picture.”

This picture isn’t always easy to watch. One section of footage shows a 28-year-old volunteer asking to be assigned only to children who aren’t dying or dead. This volunteer is a firefighter by trade, trained in disaster relief and accustomed to harrowing circumstances. Yet the need he encountered was overwhelming in scope; it was beyond what he could do. King and Cedars weren’t immune to such feelings; Haiti Unedited shows both veteran journalists having individual breakdowns on camera.

The images are haunting, the emotions raw. Yet the Haiti Unedited podcast unearths inspiration among the rubble – volunteers pouring into the ravaged country from all over the world and the unbelievable resilience of the Haitian people. The Haiti Unedited podcast was created to utilize all of the footage from King and Cedars’ mid-January visit and to showcase the strength of the human spirit amidst unimaginable hardships.

King, Cedars, Miller and promotional partner Barrett Richards Advertising have donated time and talent to see this project to fruition. “We understand how important it is to keep Haiti top of mind when so many of us are experiencing disaster fatigue,” says Barrett Richards co-founder Candice Hastings. “We are pleased to help publicize this alternative to mainstream media and its unfiltered, compelling message.”

A few years we back we rediscovered the fun of creating our own hardcover books by hand when a local non-profit requested a brand identity program. The program was to be the focal point of a brand launch party so it had to be something more than just a PowerPoint presentation. It had to be a functioning piece of art that not only demonstrated the broad scope of work between the covers but also our appreciation for being selected as the one agency who could deliver on behalf of this great cause.

We enjoyed the process so much that we’ve begun to make these books for just about everything we do – identity manuals, client proposals and more recently website manuals. It’s a big hit with our clients, especially when we’re able to incorporate something about their business into the books themselves.

So here’s a few tips we put together to help those of you who are seeking to make a major impact with what would normally be a boring presentation or manual.

1. Find a office document store that has a perfect binding machine and more importantly, an office document store employee that actually knows how to use it. The first thing we do is ask for a manager. The last thing we do is always tip the associate generously.
2. Print the inside pages of your book on a nice, high quality grade paper that you can find anywhere. Not only will you more than likely use four times the amount of paper you anticipate, but if for some reason things don’t go as planned – you won’t want to be waiting for specialty paper in the mail with a looming deadline.
3. Use fabric tape to form the spine of your book. Fabric tape is basically ordinary paper tape with ordinary thread used to reinforce it. You definitely don’t want your book falling apart at the seams during a presentation.
4. Use specialty papers for your book cover. Just about every art supply store or greeting card store carries papers that are made from unique materials. We are very fond of the Japanese papers and will attempt to incorporate something about our client into the cover design. For a recent proposal for a fencing company – we used a small section of rusty old chain link fence as a focal point. For a grungy retail look, we used old paper shopping bags weathered with 80-grit sandpaper.
5. Be sure to include a CD-ROM of the book in PDF format. Clients will absolutely love the book, so much so that they’ll refer back to the CD rather than disturb this precious piece of art made just for them.

Good luck with your next book-making endeavor and blowing away clients with an imaginative presentation.