First Person: Boris Kostov

When I got out of Portfolio Center, I was overwhelmed with the task of finding work and starting my professional career. Soon after the completion of my portfolio, I received a call from an agency in Las Vegas, SK+G, that needed help on a large project. Hesitant, I did some research and found out that SK+G Advertising is the second largest agency in Vegas and specializes in high-end clients. This was exciting news, so I decided to come to Vegas and freelance for the agency.

In my first meeting, I was introduced to the project I would be working on, a group of collateral pieces for a new entity of the Four Seasons. The Four Seasons is building a ship that is 100% residential, which means that multimillionaires and billionaires can buy a condo on this boat that is continuously circling the globe, making stops at all of the major events in the world (ex: Cannes film festival, Carnival in Rio, etc.). Our task was to create a stationery system, a broker sales kit, invitations to special sales events, a sales brochure, and the main piece, a sales conversion brochure. This brochure acts as the final push for potential buyers to sign the contract.

The excitement was rushing through my veins as I listened to my creative director give me the details of the project. My heart almost jumped out of my chest, though, when he told us the budget for the main piece, named the Magic Book, was $600 per piece. I couldn’t imagine how to spend $600 on paper and ink.

I was partnered with a designer with a great deal of experience in print work. That experience would come in handy when it came to choosing materials. But first we needed an idea. Now, in order to come up with a concept for the group of pieces, we needed to understand who our target audience was. So we asked ourselves, Who are these people who can drop 3 million, starting price, for a one-bedroom apartment on a boat that they will only own for 50 years? When I think of wealthy people, I think of people staying in the Ritz Carlton or the Plaza in NYC, but this was way off. The people we were selling to own the Ritz Carlton. They are people like Elton John and Madonna, Bill Gates and the Hilton family. So what would make these people spend their money on a boat? The answer was simple: ego.

With this in mind, we decided to create a coffee table book that they could show their friends and say, “Hey, Buddy, look what I just bought.” This piece had to feel and look like a million dollars.

Once we understood the target and their motivation for purchase, we were ready to come up with a concept. While there are other boats like this out there--the Magellan and the World, for instance--this boat would be 100% ownership, meaning there would be no rental units. Also, this boat travels the world continuously, going to some of the most exclusive ports in the world. These two selling points led to our concept: home at sea.

By this point in the process, I was hired as a full-time designer and partnered with another very talented and smart designer, Tracy Casstevens. Tracy and I were tasked with communicating this grand idea. Well, it was a lot simpler than I expected. The way we told the story was through the idea that residents no longer have a street address; rather, their address is written in coordinates. ‘Where the anchor falls is your new home.’

Graphically, we accomplished this through a series of longitude and latitude lines appearing throughout the book, creating the sense that as you go through the piece you are actually moving around the world. The book featured editorial spreads with romantic copy such as, “Day 45: 25° N, 55° W Swimming laps in the Arctic.” This was one of the original lines that didn’t fly, but I still loved it. The sales brochure, which was substantially smaller, was great testing ground for this as we prepared to tackle the Magic Book.

While this was a good way to romanticize the adventure, we still had to showcase the itinerary for the first 3 years. We created a section in the book that was dedicated to the destinations. This section was full of beautiful photography of the most breathtaking and serene locations on the planet, broken up month by month. Each spread also featured a passport stamp, specific to the location, to further reinforce the idea of world travel.

We were ready to dive into this monster. Because of the range of locations, it was impossible to conduct a photo shoot, so we did an extensive stock image search to compile a massive library of images. After we had selected the content, we dove in head first with laying it out. Tracy and I worked very diligently to get this 150 + page book done in just over a month, and--keep in mind--this was not the only project on our desks. With some blood, sweat, and tears, we laid it out week-by-week, section-by-section. And before we knew it, the piece started coming to life.

A little about the materials: As I mentioned before, I was partnered with a very experienced designer who had a big part in the materials selection. We picked out wood for the box that the book would come in, the gold velvet that lines the box and the inside front and back cover of the book, and the uncoated paper stock that adds to the textural feel of the piece. We needed it to feel not only substantial, but also expensive. We picked different paper for the divider pages, which were foil-stamped with gold, very beautiful.

It’s important to mention that the agency flew in Williamson Printing, one of the best printers in the nation, to chat with us and give us ideas on printing methods and techniques that would make the piece exceptionaly. For Tracy and me, this was the equivalent of meeting rock stars.

Still, it was a bumpy road. As we neared the end, the client decided to reduce the amount they would spend on each book to $300. This was devastating. We had multiple meetings to figure out how to cut the cost. The first thing to go, of course, was the beautiful wooden box, replaced by a cardboard shipper, still nice. The second was all of the fancy printing techniques, such as raised UV for the longitude and latitude lines, the 16 metallic inks that we were incorporating, and a couple of other gadgets. This was far as we were willing to go. There were suggestions of changing the size of the book and cutting the number of pages, but Tracy and I put our foot down and held our ground, and to much relief the client agreed with our reasoning.

Then there was the photography. Originally, the stock photo budget came in at $160,000. We were challenged to cut it down to fewer than $70,000—a very big deal when you are dealing with a picture book. We accomplished this by using a majority of royalty-free photos and through discounts with the stock houses. It was quite a chore to find royalty- free photos that were of high enough quality for this piece, but we did it.

So we were ready to print. Arnie at Quantum printing was a huge help in that he put so much time and care into this project to make it special. They did a fantastic job.

Through all the long nights in the office, and numerous headaches, the team persevered, and Tracy and I, the agency, and the Four Seasons, came out with a wonderful piece that will hopefully have a long life in consumer’s hands and not become just another piece of expensive trash.

For all those young designers ready to take on the world, here is a bit of advice: Don’t get hung up on budgets and clients’ ridiculous suggestions and demands. The work will be as good as you make it. No matter what design problem you may face, there is always a solution. I wish everyone the opportunity to work on a project of this magnitude.

Here are a few more pics of our happy team with the book.

Thank you all for listening to me brag about this project, and good luck.