When I started teaching Scenic Design I soon found there was no textbook I really liked. They were all either "How to build a flat" or  picture books of the work of famous designers that were beautiful but contained very little about why and how they arrived at their final design.

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I gradually collected my class projects together into a binder and then into a.pdf "book" that I gave my students. When I wrote my first Sabbatical request describing  how I planned to turn my project into  a real book I realized what I had written was a book proposal. Almost without thinking I sent it to Focal Press. The next day I got a call that they were interested and how soon  would i have a first draft. So much for a Sabbatical break!

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I tried to write it vey simply and clearly since the conceptual nature of the material can be pretty difficult to explain, and I decided to use my own work as most  of the visual content not out of ego but because I would know all the ins-and-outs of my process.