No, we’re not giving anything away in this post. Instead, we’ve got some work to do, and we need you to play an important role in it. Our most interesting (and important) project for 2009 is something we are modestly calling “The Smashing Book”: a smashingly written, beautifully designed and professionally printed book. It will be created by and for the Web design community. Four key decisions have already been made: the book’s title will be “The Smashing Book”; it will be a paperback; the price is fixed, as is the release date, which is early September 2009.

We want to create a totally unique and exciting book, full of insightful and useful articles; a book that contains only articles that a reader of Smashing Magazine would really want to read. No fluff, no cruft, just hearty meat and potatoes content.

To achieve this, we need the help of our community: your help. And what could be better than working on this important project together with our readers? If you want to participate in our project, please visit the forum (the registration is required for replies) and help in any of the following ways:

1. Suggest The Book Content

First, you can suggest a topic for The Smashing Book. Let us know what you want to read and what topics we should cover. What enticing, creative, useful articles should be written by us and our team? What should a Smashing Book contain? You can propose any topic you think would be great, but it must fit the small universe of Smashing Magazine and relate to design and Web development.

Once we receive your suggestions, we’ll evaluate them, filter and sort them. If necessary, we’ll open a second and third round of voting, which will (hopefully) help us select the most important and relevant topics.

Afterward, we’ll present the final list of topics to our authors team, discuss the ideas with them and assign topics. Articles for the book can also be written by members of the Web design community (of course, the authors will get paid for their work). So, if you want to propose an article for the book, please suggest your idea in the Book topics forum.

2. Suggest The Cover Design (Front And Back)

We want you to decide what The Smashing Book will look like. You can propose ideas for an unforgettable book cover design (any colors can be used), and you can also present your drafts in the Cover design forum. We’d love to see first drafts and invite forum members to discuss them, too! We haven’t decided anything about the appearance of the book yet, so free your imagination.

3. Suggest The Layout Drafts

Help us decide on the perfect prepress for The Smashing Book (not the final layout, but only layout drafts). How should it be designed? What typefaces should be used? What about font sizes, headings, columns, footnotes, image captions, page numbers, markup? What structure should the book have in general? We are open to your suggestions, so please participate in the Book layout forum: suggest your ideas and submit your drafts. We are looking for your ideas, wishes and expectations.

4. Help Us Out, And Spread The Word!

We want you to be part of The Smashing Book. Help us out by designing some outstanding buttons, badges, banners, pins, icons, graphics and whatever else you can think of. We are confident that together we’ll achieve truly outstanding results, even if the process will be a long one and see the inevitable hurdles along the way.

Of course, we will reward you! And as you would expect, we’ll also have small, exclusive rewards to give away to the most active helpers and participants.

Thanks for reading. And now, let’s get to work let’s move to the forum!

(al)